Beyond the Battle: Bringing Global Stories Home

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From API BEING PREPARED Think ahead to deal with traumatized journalists by Roger Simpson The plan: prepare now for the worst by Phil Nesbitt COMMUNITY Linking your community to the world by Phil Nesbitt To be safe, smaller papers should have a plan by Curt Hazlett ART / GRAPHICS Editing tragic photos requires common sense and heart by Phil Nesbitt The golden rules of graphics by Phil Nesbitt How an aircraft carrier works (1.9 MB PDF) USING THE WEB Finding reliable sources on the Web by Phil Nesbitt

From the Heartland Charles Apple, Graphics Editor at The Des Moines Register and an API discussion leader, takes you inside the day-to-day operations of one of the leading newspapers in the midwest. Read his Weblog

Journalist's Toolbox Iraq-U.S. Conflict: AlertNet provides country data, info on relief operations and links to satelite images as well as news. One section is dedicated to Iraq. Find more resources like these on the Toolbox’s Conflict: Iraq and the United States page. Related Resources: Military, Global Journalism and Daily News. SPECIAL REPORT -- BIOTERRORISM: We’ve launched a new section on the Military page dedicated exclusively to bioterrorism resources. The Department of Homeland Security has a new site, Ready.Gov , that offers plans and tips on safety resources. Also, dozens of bioterrorism expert databases are listed on the Expert Sources page. Related Resources: 9/11 Attacks and Iraq. Gas Price Gouging: Gas prices have soared the past few weeks in upwards of $2 as the threat of war escalates. Track gas prices nationwide on two good sites: GasPriceWatch.com and FuelEconomy.gov. Related Resouces: Business Resources.

Cyberjournalist.net As America gears up for a possible war with Iraq, now is a good time to start familiarizing yourself with the best Iraq-related resources online. CyberJournalist.net's guide gives you a good start.

Crisis Journalism Following the events of Sept. 11, 2001, API published the book Crisis Journalism: A Handbook for Media Response We have extracted the following selections from that book for this package: How to report, layer and present crisis news Tips on how copy desks can handle big stories well Packaging and presentation: Underscore the gravity of the event Reporting plan: some suggestions Infographics: A checklist for effectiveness Picture editing / Headline checklist In times of public tragedy, we learn to depend on media Online: Plan now for the next time 'We did more right than wrong' The right to produce timely independent reporting of US at war

Weblog: tips, tools and resources

Getting schooled?
Is our country's obsession with standardized education and test scores preventing students from any real learning about the complex political relationships and issues that the United States faces abroad?

Charles Haynes, a senior scholar at the First Amendment Center, reports on a study that finds teachers growing more and more reluctant and unable to tackle such subjects during the school day.

Open letter to the media
An open letter to editors, publishers, producers and reporters appears on TomPaine.com conveying "a level of heightened expectation in your forthcoming coverage of the U.S.-Iraq situation."

The letter, signed by more than two dozen journalism professors, publishers and consumer advocates, asks that a more skeptical eye be turned to several angles in this confrontation with Iraq, including: "Heightened risk of terrorism due to a war; Oil and the war; and the U.S. transfer of weapons of mass destruction materials to Iraq."

While much of what is requested more directly relates to those covering events in Iraq and Washington, it provides a valuable reminder of the role all media outlets play during a time when "top officials [tend] to equate patriotism with uncritical support of official policy."

AltaVista, Google news
I typed in "troops" and "local" into the news search pages on both AltaVista and Google.

While these links might not be for everyone, they do provide an interesting cross-section of content from a wide range of small and large publications covering the movement of troops and how they affect different communities.

They might be worthy of bookmarking, as the results are continually updated.

A cyber first salvo?
As Salon reports, should the U.S. move forward with an attack on Iraq, the first shot might come via cyberspace in the form of shutting down the country's Internet access.

BBC's Flash Iraq map
Remember overhead projectors and transparancies that could -- layer by layer -- give a two-dimensional image more of a three-dimensional feel?

With that in mind, take a look at the Flash map of Iraq on the BBC's Web site.

The map (which requires Flash 5 or higher to view) allows visitors to zoom in to a roughly 90 x 125 KM view of Iraq. It also enables users to select from check boxes to include the any or all of the following into the map: suspected weapons sites, presidential palaces, dissident areas, no-fly zones, Republican guard, air defense command, major army bases, Oil refineries, Oilfields, Oil pipelines, airports, airfields and roads.

Wilson Center weighs in
The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars has always been a valuable resource for knowledge about the complex relationships among nations and cultures around the world, and with tensions rising over Iraq, the center continues to deliver. Director Lee Hamilton examines the long-terms costs of a war with Iraq, in the context of how it fits in with the war on terror and continued economic uncertainty at home.

Hamilton, as stated in his bio, served for thirty-four years as a [Democratic] United States Congressman from Indiana. During his tenure, he served as Chairman and Ranking Member of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs (now the Committee on International Relations), and chaired the Subcommittee on Europe and the Middle East from the early 1970s until 1993.

On gender issues and going to the Web for coverage
Two interesting articles in the San Jose Mercury News (San Jose, Ca.) explore the Internet and blogging, and men and women in relationship to the possible war. Michelle Guido wrote on 3/3/03 that women are emerging at the forefront of the peace movement as never before in U.S. history.

With man-and-woman-on-the-street-style interviews and results from pollsters, Guido finds that women are consistently less likely than men to push forward with armed conflict. Althougth this statement will get some pacificist men going, the phemenon isn't unusual throughout history, John J. Zogby, president and CEO of Zogby International, the polling giant, says. The reasons go back to the sandbox, with little boys being more likely than little girls to accept violence as a solution. Guido notes that Medea Benjamin moved from San Francisco to Washington in November to mobilize women against the war through CodePink: Women for Peace codepink4peace.org Women involved in CodePink are taking part in vigils, fasts and a 40-day hunger strike to draw attention to their view that they are being drowned out by "testosterone-poisoned rhetoric."

Mercury News Staff Writer Mary Anne Ostrom detailed on 2/28/03 how Americans are turning to the Internet in record numbers for news and opinion about the Iraq conflict. "By the millions," she writes, " they are going online to get up-to-the-minute news, read reports in the foreign and alternative press, and check out so-called "warblogs," electronic diaries pushing myriad views on the conflict with Iraq."

"The town square is global, the bulllhorn is loud and it's not very expensive," Dave Winer, a Silicon Valley technologist and blogging pioneer tells Ostrom, who also describes the Web as the new national "water cooler" for the exchange of views on a war among common men and women.

'Inevitable' War?
You read and hear it everywhere: “The impending war.” But, as an article in the Chicago Tribune points out, this phrase isn’t objective. Michael Josephson, president of the Josephson Institute of Ethics says that when politicians use the word, it may be part of political negotiations, but when journalists employ it they are signaling that war is inevitable. The Tribune article contains many quotes from copy editors at major newspapers. Some, such as the Washington Post, don’t see a problem with the word choice. Others, such as the New York Times, think it should only be used within a quote. (Seeking neutrality in the media’s war of words)