Afghan war army officer defies chain of command in reporting ‘truth’ about war

After two years of deployment in Afghanistan, Lt. Col. Daniel L Davis concluded that the war was not going well and that the establishment was not telling the truth about the situation. He filed two reports with the Defense Department’s inspector general summarizing his observations and briefed members of Congress and  a New York Times [...]

Law blog suggests ways to avoid libel suits for online postings

A Los Angeles media lawyer provides eight strategies for avoiding libel and concludes by saying that retractions and apologies must be done carefully so that you don’t make the situation  worse. -db From the California Defamation Law Blog, January 17, 2012, by Gordon Firemark. Full story  

Grad student devises software to ferret out false claims in articles

A MIT Media Lab student is writing software that will highlight false claims in articles in the same way as spell check.  The software is expected to be ready some time next year before the presidential elections. But the grad student warns that the software only identifies what PolitiFact deems dubious leaving the determination of [...]

Gawker opens site to probe WikiLeaks

Citing Wikileaks secretive mode of operation, Gawker announced a new website, Wikileakileaks.org, to provide the public details of the organization’s operation. -db ValleyWag Commentary August 31, 2010 Secret-sharing website Wikileaks.org’s tagline is “We open governments.” But the organization itself is about as open as North Korea. That’s why we’ve launched Wikileakileaks.org: your source for Wikileaks-related [...]