http://www.youtube.com/v/l33pcR2L_c4?version=3&f=videos&app=youtube_gdata Read this article: Al Jazeera’s correspondents report from across Pakistan
Would we give up burgers to stop climate change?
In case you missed the news, humanity spent the Earth Day week reaching another sad milestone in the history of catastrophic climate change: For the first time, measurements of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere surpassed 400 parts per million, aka way above what our current ecosystem can handle.Actually, you probably did miss the news because most major media outlets didn’t cover it in a serious way, if at all. Instead, they and their audiences evidently view such information as far less news-, buzz- and tweet-worthy than (among other things) the opening of George W. Bush’s library and President Obama’s jokes at the White House Correspondents Dinner.Such an appetite for distraction, no doubt, comes from both those who deny the problem of climate change and those who acknowledge the crisis but nonetheless look away from what feels like an unsolvable mess.That sense of hopelessness is understandable. After all, some of the most hyped ways to reduce carbon emissions — electric cars, mass-scale renewable energy power plants, etc. — require the kind of technological transformations that can seem impossibly unrealistic at a time when Congress can’t even pass a budget.Continue Reading… … Read More
Watch Obama and Conan’s speeches at the Correspondents’ Dinner
At the annual White House Correspondents’ Dinner, President Obama joked about his birthplace (“I’m also hard at work on plans for the Obama library. Some have suggested that we put it in my birthplace but I’d rather keep it in the United States”) and Conan O’Brien knocked the NRA’s Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre for not having the top title in the group (“Which begs the question, how freaking crazy do you have to be to be the actual president of the NRA?”)Here’s Obama’s speech:And Conan’s:Continue Reading… … Read More
Steven Spielberg’s surprise “Lincoln” follow-up
As part of a White House Correspondents’ Dinner gag, Stephen Spielberg debuted a teaser of his next big presidential biopic. Surprisingly, he’s decided to bring back “Daniel Day-Lewis” for the title role…Continue Reading… … Read More
RT aims to revolutionize how the world reports news with own video agency
“Right now there are basically a couple of big agencies that provide the majority of news footage to international outlets, and particularly to TV channels and online platforms that cannot afford bureaus or send correspondents to every hotspot. As a result, viewers often see events around the globe through the eyes of these providers. In such a market there are inevitable gaps in coverage, plus the risk of bias in the eventual reportage,” says Margarita Simonyan, RT’s editor-in-chief.“Now Ruptly can provide an alternative, show a different side of a story, or a story altogether missed by other sources. We offer a bolder, deeper perspective than the one brought to the table by the ‘usual suspects’.”The origins of the ambitious project – which launches after operating in test mode throughout winter – was the coverage of the South Ossetian conflict, involving Russia and Georgia, in 2008.“What we saw in the global media was a much skewed coverage of the conflict, largely biased toward Georgia’s position, dismissing Russia’s and ignoring the atrocities committed by the Georgian side, which had in fact initiated the war. There were plenty of videos from Gori and Tbilisi but nothing showing Georgia’s attacks on civilians in Tskhinval, nor any coverage of the plight of Ossetian refugees,” says Simonyan.“We had video reportage from Tskhinval, and decided to make it available to other news outlets so that they could see – and show – the other side of this war.”RUPTLY works extensively with the international stringer network and leverages RT’s global presence that counts outposts in Washington DC, London, Madrid, Damascus, Cairo, Gaza and Baghdad among its 22 bureaus.One hundred staff have already joined Ruptly’s state-of-the-art, purpose built headquarters in Berlin – a growing news hub conveniently placed for stories from either side of the globe.Unburdened with the legacy platforms of other news agencies, Ruptly will be using the Streamworks International delivery system – the most advanced in the world – to broadcast HD signal to any media, from giant billboards, to news stations, to mobile phones. Ruptly can provide five simultaneous live signals. For comparison, Associated Press, the world’s biggest news agency, only has one live channel.RT, which is a non-profit organization, will charge clients for using its videos, from a single use to a full subscription, but does not intend to make money on Ruptly. Instead, the agency will be expected to break even to support its operations.“It will take a few years for the revenues from the sales of video materials to cover the costs of running the new agency but the ultimate goal for Ruptly, as it has been for RT, is to provide balance in the global media coverage of the world news, and offer an alternative in a highly concentrated market of professional video footage,” says Margarita Simonyan. … Read More
