By Lizzy Crocker, The Daily Beast, Tuesday Jul. 30, 2013

By now you have probably already seen one of the most embarrassing interviews in Fox News history: a Muslim scholar’s work is apparently disregarded purely because of his faith. When you sit down to read the book, however, you can see why some Christians have found it so explosive.

Perhaps the biggest mistake made by Lauren Green, the Fox News religious correspondent, was failing to challenge any of Aslan’s wilder assertions. He claims Jesus was not born in Bethlehem, was executed as a common criminal, and was more of a rabble-rouser than a man of peace.

Instead, the now viral interview began with Green asking why Aslan, a Muslim, would write a book about Jesus Christ. She proved incapable of moving beyond that misguided line of thinking throughout the entire 10-minute segment, suggesting that his faith prevented him from writing an unbiased academic book on Christianity. She even falsely accused him of hiding the fact that he’s a Muslim (as Azlan calmly clarified to Green, he makes that clear on page two of the book).

Read all: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/07/30/speed-read-the-six-most-controversial-reza-aslan-claims-about-jesus.html

By Eliza Kern and Laura Hazard Owen, Gigaom, Tuesday Jun. 24, 2013

For news geeks, it might have seemed like the end of the world when Google Reader announced it was shutting its doors on July 1, killing a product that was much-loved by its fans but apparently not by Google’s business department.

Since Google’s announcement, there’s been a burst of launches of some variation of an RSS reader or new reading app. Many of the apps are quite similar to the old Google Reader — to a certain extent, if you’re just doing a basic replication of Google Reader, there’s not much to think about in terms of design.

But there are some key differences among the RSS options — including mobile options, development resources and cost.

So we decided to break down some of the leading options to help you figure out which one is right for you.

Read all: http://gigaom.com/2013/06/24/life-after-google-reader-gigaoms-guide-to-the-best-options/

By Alastair Reid, journalism.co.uk, Wednesday 12 June 2013

The New York Times Magazine Sunday supplement has been re-imagined for the web and an online version of this month’s ‘innovations issue’ went live on Friday, featuring 48 pages of responsive magazine content, complete with responsive advertising, built through HTML5.

John Niedermeyer, as lead designer of digital news at the New York Times, has spent much of the last month considering how people best consume online content, in anticipation of the latest issue of the Times’s Magazine. “When you translate things for digital, frequently there’s a loss of a lot of the things that make a magazine such a great thing to thumb through,” explained Niedermeyer, speaking to Journalism.co.uk. “So one of the goals of this project was to bring part of that art direction – typography, photography, the sort of nice magazine lay out – to the digital side.”

The tactile nature of this project – creating something “that was designed to be touched first” – was central to making it attractive for mobile and tablet users; incorporating gesture navigation to swipe between content either on a mobile or tablet device or using keys on a desktop.

The attractive, responsive and intuitive nature of these HTML5 projects are at the forefront of web design for presenting content digitally. Yet the developing technology’s uses is still at an early stage, said Niedermeyer.

Read all: http://www.journalism.co.uk/news/new-york-times-brings-magazine-experience-to-the-web/s2/a553247/

By Irin Carmon, Salon, Monday 10 June 2013

Laura Poitras, the award-winning documentary filmmaker gave her first since she helped reveal the scope of the National Security Agency’s digital surveillance. Poitras is still in Hong Kong, where she is filming the story behind the story — including her co-author on the Guardian story and former Salon columnist Glenn Greenwald — for her forthcoming documentary on whistle-blowers and leaks.

“I feel a certain need to be cautious about not wanting to do the work for the government,” she told Salon, but agreed to clarify some parts of her role in the story.

In a wide-ranging interview, she explained how she first made contact with Snowden, her reaction to the possible future investigation into his leaks, and why Edward Snowden didn’t go to the New York Times.

Read all: http://www.salon.com/2013/06/10/qa_with_laura_poitras_the_woman_behind_the_nsa_scoops/

By Seth Fiegerman, mashable, Tuesday 7 May 2013

One of the most talked about companies for online news right now isn’t a journalism outlet or a media conglomerate, but rather a small startup incubator and investor located in the heart of Manhattan’s meatpacking district.

“I think you can redefine a media company for this century,” Betaworks CEO John Borthwick told Mashable in an interview. “We are trying to do that from the ground up.”

He eventually settled on a few fundamental principles for such a company: It would be data-driven. It wouldn’t need to own all the expensive assets that traditional media corporations do. It would be more focused on distribution, but not tied to a particular method of distribution. It would be, as he puts it, a “loose federation of pieces.”

If you look at the companies Betaworks is currently developing or has large stakes in, you’ll notice a suite of media consumption products, like Digg and Instapaper, as well as the recently launched Tapestry, which aims to create a better reading experience for short stories, and the soon-to-launch Google Reader alternative, not to mention other products in the pipeline.

Borthwick refers to each of these as pieces of a puzzle, which collectively solve that question of creating a 21st century media company.

At the center of all that is Digg, which Borthwick says is the heart of Betaworks’ media ecosystem — at least for right now — in the same way search is the heart of Google’s ecosystem.

Read all: http://mashable.com/2013/05/07/betaworks-future/

By Kirsten Korosec, smartplanet, Monday 8 April 2013

Dutch journalist Rob Wijnberg made an appeal last month to the masses: invest in a digital news site–that doesn’t yet exist–that will provide a platform for long-form journalism and in-depth content detached from the typical breaking news cycle.

The site, created by Wijnberg and Momkai founder Harald Dunnink (pictured above), is slated to launch in September, according to De Correspondent’s blog. The platform they’re creating will be entirely advertisement free and focus on “slow journalism and background stories,” the founders wrote in a blog post.

The creators are developing a digital news site that takes a different approach to practices currently implemented by big media. The site will be updated daily, but will have content focused on more than just the issues of the day, according to the De Correspondent’s manifesto. The news site will not espouse a political ideology, just journalistic ideals, won’t have advertisers, but will have partners and will not go after a targeted group or demographic.

Read all: http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/bulletin/crowdfunding-news-a-media-experiment-takes-shape/16960