Writing in the Columbia Journalism Review, Maureen Tkacik explains: Phone sex is not so unlike being a reporter. A central challenge of success at both is keeping random strangers—horny guys, hostile hedge-fund managers—on the phone, talking to you, confessing to you, growing fond of you, resolving to talk to you again. And at all times, phone-sex operators, like reporters, are expected to remain detached, wise to “The Game,” objective—but in a way, that’s crap. It’s not easy to become beloved by strangers if not a single part of you truly yearns for that love. This echos Janet Malcolm's famous dictum that, "Every...

29 June, 2010

The Toronto-based International Freedom of Expression eXchange (IFEX) reports that at least 21 journalists were killed in a politically motivated massacre of more than 52 people in the Philippines this week. It is the largest group of journalists killed in a single incident ever. Abducted by armed men, many of the victims were beheaded and mutilated; some of the women were raped. The dead were part of a convoy delivering candidacy papers for Ismael Mangudadatu, a local mayor and candidate for governor Maguindanao province on Mindanao island. Mangudadatu's wife and several other relatives were among the dead. The killings have received scant...

26 November, 2009