Is it ok for journalists to change facts?

I don't care what your politics or your religion are, if you're a journalist your job is the report the facts of the day. Journalists are historians in many ways, documenting what's happening in our world. That why I find it so terribly disturbing that one newspaper has gone as far as to edit a photograph taken at the White House.

The photo below was shot by White House photographer Pete Souza. It captures President Obama and his national security team watching the live feed of the raid on Osama bin Laden's compound on April 30.

Photo credit: Pete Souza

The photo that appeared in Brooklyn's Der Tzitung, however, looked like this:

Photo credit: Yahoo! News

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has been "fauxtoshopped" out. As has the woman in the back, Audrey Tomason, the national director of counter-terrorism. Apparently, the Der Tzitung is an ultra-Orthodox Hasidic publication which won't print any photos of women in its broadsheet.

Now, aside from the fact that the White House says official photos made available to news organizations cannot be manipulated, aside from the fact that Der Tzitung finds it unsuitable to show women in photos, what ever happened to journalists reporting the news? You know, the news that's all jam-packed with facts and reality?

This isn't about religion. This isn't about politics. And please don't turn this into a discussion about Hillary Clinton. This is about journalism. If we can't count on newspapers to deliver the unbiased, unaltered news, well, quite frankly, they serve no purpose. To completely change the facts of history by removing one of the highest-ranking cabinet members from a photo that chronicles one of the most significant days in U.S. history? That's disgraceful.

Practice your religion. Embrace your politics. But when a journalist takes the oath to report the news, his or her personal feelings should take a back seat. Shame on anyone and any news organization that would alter an historic photograph. If it somehow goes again the "ethics" of the news organization, I say don't print it. No one says you have to! But, don't alter history. That's dishonest. That's unprofessional. That's irresponsible. And, it's flat out wrong.

Read your Twitter stream like a newspaper

It seems like many people are on Twitter 24/7, but you have other things to do, right? You want to keep up with the news that your network is sharing, but can't possibly monitor your stream constantly. Well, here's a great site that should help you get through all that useful information.

Paper.li collects the best news from your stream and groups it into relevant categories (e.g. technology, business, entertainment, sports) and hashtags. It also embeds the videos and photos that people are sharing. As for the paper.li page, well, it kind of looks like a page in a newspaper.

Just allow Paper.li to connect to your Twitter page, it will pull the best info from your stream, and then give you a personally branded Paper.li page (in my case, for example, it's paper.li/wordsdonewrite). You can then either visit your page for the best news of the day, or maybe even share your paper.li page with friends. In any case, it's provides a user-friendly overview of what's happening in your corner of the Twittersphere. You can also follow other people's Paper.li pages to see what's happening in their networks.

In this age of aggragator sites, it's nice to have options. We all digest information differently, so if you need a better way to remain connected to your network and the info they share, check out Paper.li. If you like it, by all means, let me know what you think. Have a site you like better? Share it!

Happy aggregating!

News Junkie Heaven

If you're a news junkie and can't read enough, you have got to bookmark the Today's Front Pages section of Newseum. It features more than 800 newspapers and you can sort by region to make your reading easier.

Yes, you could visit the websites of all these papers, but this great service from Newseum collects all the "printed" news for you (and, of course, the content on the front page of a newspaper frequently varies from the homepage of a website, so you can see the paper just as it appeared on news racks). You can even break down your search to select front pages from North America, Asia, Europe, the Caribbean, Africa, the Middle East, South America, and more!

Do you love your daily dose of news? If so, this is a news junkie's dream come true!

What will crazy, old loons do if newspapers fold?

As some of you already know, I spent two years at The Los Angeles Times. The time period in which I was there was one of the most turbulent in the industry (and it continues today). Newspapers are struggling to adapt to the changing world in which people consume news online and in real time. The business model is taking an unprecedented hit and many wonder how long newspapers will survive.

Although I have the utmost respect for the quality journalism that newspapers produce, I couldn't help but to laugh and cry at the video below. I firmly believe that newspapers keep politicians and government agencies accountable like no online news site does, or can, but there's something tragically accurate about this spoof from The Onion. I suspect this sad account might just be all too true.