cnewmark

Daylife.com developer challenge

Daylife is a platform for building new news experiences (full disclosure: I'm a token investor).

They're in the midst of their first Developer Challenge, with which they're encouraging developers to build the next great news application using the Daylife Platform. Any and all ideas are invited, from standalone apps to widgets to mashups. They've already seen some great apps built on top of Daylife; the Challenge highlights that anyone can build a news app, free, using the Daylife API.

The contest runs for another 10 days (through July 25th) has a great panel of judges, and $7,000 in prizes.

For more information, look at developer.daylife.com/contest

Okay, I try the CNN iReport thing

This isn't really my thing, but this election changes everything, so people of good will gotta stand up.

OneWebDay on 22 September

Hey, OneWebDay is a big deal.

It's an Earth Day for the Internet that happens each September 22. The Net allows people of good will everywhere to get together to make things better. For example, it is becoming an effective means of making local government more responsive. OneWebDay's theme this year is participatory democracy, and I hope to use OneWebDay as an opportunity to speak out about the power of the Net to help all of us expand our involvement in day-to-day democracy. The success of the Obama campaign is just one indication of what we can do together online - eventually, getting government to work better, be accountable, and restore rule of law.

I'm planning on getting to Washington Square in New York City at noon on Sept. 22, and so will Larry Lessig. We'll be part of a network of OneWebDay events across the U.S. and around the globe. To catch up with what's happening check out the OneWebDay site, http://onewebday.org. And to
start thinking about possible actions you can take on 9/22, go here.

McCain news hunt summary

Folks at "Off the Bus" at Huffington Post and at NewAssignment.net worked hard with the NewsTrust.net community to find the best and most trustworthy news regarding McCain over the last week.

The results are summarized here.

Some of the most trusted stories include:

• factcheck.org reports that McCain "supported every investigation"
  regarding Hurricane Katrina", which is false, more here

• McCain supports amnesty for big telecoms who broke the law regarding wiretapping (follow the trail here (note: people have pointed out that Reagan never broke the law to fight Communism; that the wiretapping program begain before 9/11; also, the people running McCain, Davis and Black, are telecom lobbyists.)

• McCain Distorts Obama's Iran Views

• McCain Emerges as Master Economic Flip-Flopper
  

Colorado finch tragedy

This is good work, and sad, where a web cam views a finch nest... and a predatory Blue Jay, and a survivor baby finch. (I think they're "house finches".)

Not pretty, but here.

To see the survivor learn to fly in a hurry, check here.

ProPublica.org: a big step forward in investigative journalism

These guys might represent the future of investigative reporting:

ProPublica is an independent, non-profit newsroom that will produce investigative journalism in the public interest. Our work will focus exclusively on truly important stories, stories with “moral force.” We will do this by producing journalism that shines a light on exploitation of the weak by the strong and on the failures of those with power to vindicate the trust placed in them.

Investigative journalism is at risk. Many news organizations have increasingly come to see it as a luxury. Today’s investigative reporters lack resources: Time and budget constraints are curbing the ability of journalists not specifically designated “investigative” to do this kind of reporting in addition to their regular beats. This is therefore a moment when new models are necessary to carry forward some of the great work of journalism in the public interest that is such an integral part of self-government, and thus an important bulwark of our democracy.

The business crisis in publishing and — not unrelated — the revolution in publishing technology are having a number of wide-ranging effects. Among these are that the creation of original journalism in the public interest, and particularly the form that has come to be known as “investigative reporting,” is being squeezed down, and in some cases out.

Of particular interest to me is "scandal watch", right hand side column, where they report ongoing scandals. Frequently, big reports of corruption appear in the news one day, then disappear the next. Scandal watch focuses on stories which are an ongoing big deal. here's one example.

NewsTrust and HuffPo partner for John McCain 'news hunt'

Hey, NewsTrust.net represents one of the best efforts to get people together to figure out the most trustworthy news:

NewsTrust.net and Huffington Post’s OffTheBus are partnering this week on a ‘news hunt’ for good journalism about John McCain. This McCain 'news hunt' will engage reviewers from both organizations to rate hundreds of news articles about the candidate, using NewsTrust’s state-of-the-art news literacy tools. The goal is to help readers learn more about McCain and make more informed decisions as citizens.

To join the news hunt, go here

Disclaimer: I'm on the advisory board of NewsTrust

NY Times on Bush undermining the troops

Hey, there's a good editorial here:

Having saddled the military with a botched, unwinnable war, having squandered soldiers’ lives and failed them in so many ways, the commander in chief now resists giving the troops a chance at better futures out of uniform. He does this on the ground that the bill is too generous and may discourage re-enlistment, further weakening the military he has done so much to break.

So lavish with other people’s sacrifices, so reckless in pouring the national treasure into the sandy pit of Iraq, Mr. Bush remains as cheap as ever when it comes to helping people at home.

I hear the White House is still running the scam regarding the GI bill, shown to be a scam by the Congressional Budget Office.

Finding me on twitter

I'm "craignewmark", you can use twitter.com/craignewmark

for what it's worth...?

DonorsChoose.org success via Colbert Democralypse Now!

Hey, the Stephen Colbert challenged us to "vote" in Pennsylvania via DonorsChoose, which allows anyone to contribute to classroom projects, cutting out the usual middleman.

here's a report on those efforts.

Following are a coupla results from one project I funded: