I Choose Superman
My family has a disproportionate love of Superman and I never quite understood why until recently. When I say disproportionate love, I mean manic crazy love. My sister took a tape recorder into…
View ArticleWhat message is US sending with a Boston lockdown?
Boston lockdown Photo: REUTERS BOSTON - Millions of residents of the Boston metropolitan were ordered to stay in a “lockdown” on Friday as police and the FBI hunted down the second of…
View ArticleThe social media tail mustn’t wag the MSM dog
The Boston bombing and subsequent manhunt was in many ways the first big interactive news story. It wasn’t the first big event to be covered obsessively on social media, but it was the first…
View ArticleThe Media Doesn't Own The Story Anymore
Yesterday, the conspiracy nuts at Infowars and the proud tabloid hacks at the New York Post, the amateur sleuths on Reddit and and the top-notch journalists at CNN shared something: They each failed…
View ArticleIn defense of journalistic error
Hilary Sargent, who does business on the Web as Chart Girl, compiled the best early guide to the journalistic mistakes made on the afternoon of April 17, as broadcasters and wire services moved their…
View ArticleLesson from the manhunt: We’re all journalists now
“View from my house…crazy.” Watertown resident Shawna England’s tweeted photo of the Boston manhunt was one of the most shared images early Friday. Thursday night, after…
View ArticleReflections on the Recent Boston Crisis
by /u/Shitty_Watercolour After some reflection we want to share our thoughts about the reddit activity during the recent crisis in Boston. We all need to look at what happened and make sure that in…
View Article102 hours in pursuit of Marathon bombing suspects
For five indelible days, the unthinkable became routine in Boston. And no one felt that more than the police and agents mounting the largest manhunt in regional history and parsing its most complex…
View ArticleThe Shoes We Wore: Runners Share Their Boston Marathon Bombing Stories
As told to the staff of Boston magazine. Sneakers worn by Boston Marathon runners. Photo by Mitchell Feinberg. Styling by Megan Caponetto. / Individual shoe photos by Scott M. Lacey. Styling by Kara…
View ArticleThe Naked Man, Watertown, and Conspiracy Theories
It was a little after 1 A.M. last Friday morning when the person who has since become known as “the naked man” was briefly detained by police as they searched for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in…
View ArticleWhat If the Tsarnaevs Had Been the “Boston Shooters”?
Here’s a little mental experiment. Imagine, for a moment, that the Tsarnaev brothers, instead of packing a couple of pressure cookers loaded with nails and explosives into their backpacks a…
View ArticleWhen Everyone is an Eye-Witness, What is a Journalist?
I thought a lot about one of my journalistic heroes this past week. In fact, I think of Ernie Pyle any time I need reassurance about journalism. His World War II dispatches are lessons in…
View ArticleIt Wasn't Sunil Tripathi: The Anatomy of a Misinformation Disaster
In the middle of the last night's nearly unbelievable turn of events, for a few hours, hundreds of thousands of people received a message about the identity of the alleged Boston Marathon bombers…
View ArticleDzhokhar Tsarnaev, Lost and Found
As always in America, the facts about what happened today near Boston were braided into what was shown and said about what had happened, and so the two became inseparable. There were two terrorists…
View ArticleThis Is The Modern Manhunt: The FBI, The Hive Mind And The Boston Bombers
In an earlier era, law enforcement might not have identified the suspects in the Boston Marathon bombing so rapidly.
View ArticleBreaking News Is Broken
CNN's coverage of the Boston Marathon bombing has been flawed at times.Screen Grab Courtesy of CNN/YouTube Inspired by the events of the past week, here’s a handy guide for anyone looking to figure…
View ArticleShameless paper in mindless fog
If our culture allowed diseased newspapers to be quarantined, I’d have the New York Post kenneled right now. I express that sentiment after reading the Post‘s Boston…
View ArticleTK things I saw happen in /r/findbostonbombers this week
I must have started really using Reddit on a regular basis sometime in the last two years or so, quietly, at night, on my phone, using the Alien Blue app on the “dark” setting, mostly…
View ArticleSocial Media and the Boston Bombings
In a breaking news situation, journalists get an adrenaline rush. There is a palpable eagerness to get the scoop, to be the first to bring the story to the public. In today's world of social media,…
View ArticleFast and wrong beats slow and right
Breaking news addicts were glued to their screens last week as developments in the Boston bombings case flooded cable news and media Twitter feeds, but in many cases, it’s hard to argue that…
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