Good evening, 919 Gang.
TOM GABLE writes:
Howard
Cosell noted that the sports page is the toy department of human life. Covering
the Padres must be like exploring through the mismatched and lost parts
section, hoping some things fit. The writers keep trying to provide
opportunities for the coaches and players to offer the obligatory quote giving
hope for the future. Here are some recent excerpts:
June 19 Oracle Park Losses
They arrived at Oracle Park
on Monday knowing they were in for a tough series against a team that had won
seven straight games.
They didn’t know it would
be like this, with late leads blown and walk-off losses in the first two games.
That halted (again)
whatever momentum the Padres thought they had built by winning three
consecutive series.
“It’s frustrating,” Melvin
said Wednesday afternoon. “We still feel confident that we’re gonna break
through at some point. We’ve just gotten to the hilltop and have been able to
get over it.”
June 25 Nationals Rout
The Padres had loosely
identified as a goal going 10-5 over their five series leading up to next
month’s All-Star break. The just-completed three-game set was the beginning of
that.
“Obviously, we’re already
two losses in,” Bogaerts said. “So that’s not a good start. But it’s not how
you start, it’s how you finish. So we still have a chance to turn that around
and — 10-5 and end on a really strong note. But we have to start. We have to.
There’s not a lot of tomorrows left. The season is coming to an end. I mean,
not soon, but it is. Keep taking on losses, it’s gonna come quick.”
June 27, after losing three
straight
“We’re not in our best
place right now,” Melvin said. “If you asked me this three days ago, I would
have said we’re on the verge of being in a really good place. And it’s been
that way all year to where we feel like we are doing some good things and then
all of a sudden we go through bad spurts right after that. You know, you get
tired of saying we need to sustain something. We haven’t done it this year.
Coming off two pretty good offensive games, we weren’t able to sustain it
again. So it’s not a good feeling right now. You gotta keep digging.”
Fernando Tatis Jr., who
grounded into two double plays Tuesday night, disagreed with the assessment the
Padres lacked fire.
“They were hitting, and we
were not,” Tatis said. “Just that. … I don’t think it’s being flat. Everybody’s
putting the amount of effort that everybody can put out there. We just didn’t
have the result we wanted.”
June 28 – Machado
embarrassed
PITTSBURGH — Manny Machado
felt it was time to say it is time. “We need a little more urgency as a team,”
he said. “We just do.”
“We’re too good of a team
to be where we’re at,” he said. “We have too many good players that can carry
this team by themselves.”
Now, however, there is an
acknowledgment by the man whose talent is arguably matched only by his cool
nonchalance that time is running short.
“Things are getting a
little bit out of hand,” Machado said. “We’ve got three months to prove people
wrong. So the only thing that can change that is the urgency and the want.
That’s what we’ve got to do from now on. We’ve got to want it more than
everyone else.”
(Let’s hope they emerge
from the All-Star break with that sense of urgency and winning more series than
they lose.)
---------------------------------------------------------
MARK MONDAY writes:
Open
Source Research (OSR) has come a long way since my decades as a reporter. While
I don’t think OSR – nor Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) -- have been given the
attention they deserve, I can say that I am excited by some recent moves.
We are seeing more attention being given to the findings of
those workers who tirelessly slave in Bellingcat and similar groups – positive
attention by both the public and governments.
If
I were a beat reporter today I would be structuring my work around the use of
open source techniques. Depending on the beat I think I could improve my output
anywhere from 50% to 300% by employing open source techniques.
Agence
France Presse (AFP) has developed a useful set of online classes for
journalists, wherever they are. The New York Times has a highly useful team of
open source investigators. But overall journalism has been far too slow in
teaching would-be practitioners the myriad techniques of Open Sources, which is
why I look on this so favorably:
BBC
News effort tries to popularize new reporting methods, boost transparency
DAVID BAUDER
Wed, June 28, 2023 at 1:08
PM PDT·3 min read
NEW YORK (AP) — The BBC is more aggressively bringing “open source”
reporting and efforts to expose disinformation to its day-to-day reporting,
a move that signals a potential shift in journalism's embrace of new technology.
The
just-announced creation of a new BBC Verify unit is also an attempt by the news
organization to be more transparent in its reporting, said Deborah Turness, BBC
News chief executive officer.
Practitioners
of open source reporting go beyond traditional methods of interviews and
examining public records to tell stories by using tools such as satellite
images, mobile phone recordings, advanced internet searches and the like.
They
have produced some compelling investigative reporting, but Turness is looking
for more immediacy. For example, when Russia claimed a Ukrainian drone tried to
attack the Kremlin, the BBC gathered multiple videos of explosions in the night
sky, and quickly found video footage to map the actions of police in recent
unrest at a housing complex.
The
BBC has been using satellite photos in an attempt to document planning and movement
by both sides in the Ukraine war.
“We
are taking a step out front to lead and experiment in this space,” Turness
said.
Many
people active in open source reporting will be paying close attention to
whether the BBC succeeds, said Alexa Koenig, executive director of the Human
Rights Center at the University of California at Berkeley's law school.
“There's
really a need for journalists to start embracing these new methods of
fact-finding to deepen their day-to-day storytelling,” said Koenig, who helps train
students in their use.
The
New York Times and Washington Post both have strong storytelling units but tend
to concentrate on larger, more exhaustive investigations — such as the Times'
“Day of Rage” video that reconstructed the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack.
More
recently, both newspapers traced online records on the movements of a man
accused of leaking classified material, and the Post found video to illustrate
an Israeli raid in a civilian area of the West Bank this spring.
BBC
Verify puts various company efforts — data and video analysis, fact-checking
and countering disinformation — under one roof, Turness said.
“When
you talk to news consumers, they will tell you that there is so much chaos and
confusion that they no longer know who to trust,” said Turness, an NBC News
executive from 2013 to 2021. “I think that's even worse in the U.S. market.”
As
a result, it's vital for news organizations to be very transparent to show how
they reach conclusions, particularly when newer reporting methods are involved,
she said.
While
Koenig agreed that's important, she said great care needs to be taken to avoid
increasing confusion.
“It
may look like transparency on the surface, but it may actually be obfuscating,”
she said. “People don't understand how to read satellite images.”
Turness
also wants to emphasize exposing disinformation, particularly with the rapid
advancement of artificial intelligence.
“We're
going to have to move at the same speed as the AI technology that's weaponizing
the bulk of fake news,” she said.
(Emphasis added)
------------------------------------------------
PRESTON TUREGANO writes:
Three
or four years ago, I contacted National Geographic Books, pointing out that its
11th World Atlas edition did not have the Spanish city of Segovia.
The city of now 51,000 inhabitants is famous for the remains of a very high
ancient Roman aqueduct, big cathedral, and iconic storybook-like castle
(Alcazar). No one at NG Books ever responded to my catch, perhaps too
embarrassed. The monthly NG magazine was becoming weird in its covers and
stories., too, so I quit NG once and for all. These days, I’m into Smithsonian
magazine. It led me to a national speaking (“lecture”) tour of Egypt’s top
archeologist, Dr. Zahi Hawass, earlier this week in a cavernous ball room of
San Antonio’s Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center. His 23-city stops began May
2 in Phoenix (San Diego got him May 5), and San Antonio is second to the last
before last stop, Boston (June 30). Turned out to be a long informercial for a
travel company (Archaeological Paths) that sponsors/organizes trips to Egypt.
Fares begin for a seven-day jaunt at just a few dollars short of $7,000 per
person. I’m guessing the 14-day trip is $14,000. No thanks. I went to Egypt for
10 days in 1984 for about $3,000. These days, my spouse and I would never go
because mostly hardcore Islamic Egypt would not tolerate a same-sex-married
foreign couple who would have no rights or say so in the event of a medical
crisis.
So, why did I spend $149 to hear Dr. Hawass? Some
“VIP”attendees paid more than $1,000 per person to hear Hawass, whom I met
circa the year 2000 in Pasadena when he and fellow French underwater
archeologist Dr. Frank Goddio came to the summer meeting of the TV Critics’
Association to promote their upcoming Discovery Channel program on Goddio’s
discovery of the palace of Cleopatra VII, Egypt’s last queen and lover of Marc
Antony and Julius Caesar. The palace sank in Alexandria harbor after an
earthquake and tsunami. So far, Cleo’s tomb has not been discovered. It may be
in desert near Alexandria. Anyway, after Hawass’s and Goddio’s TCA
presentation, I planned to take a shuttle press bus back to the Ritz Carlton.
Seeing my “TCA Press” lanyard, they invited just me to join them in their limo
ride back to the hotel. Of course, I did. And I put their TV special on the
cover of the U-T’s TV Week program guide. I reminded Hawass of this Tuesday
night after his Texas talk, so he signed my copy of his and Goddio’s book about
Cleopatra VII. He seemed to sneer at my mention of Goddio, leading me to think
they may not be colleagues anymore. Maybe Zahi isn’t a good swimmer? Or,
perhaps Goddio doesn’t like Zahi’s Indiana Jones-like signature hat.
Note how Zahi Hawass marked
through coin photo of Cleopatra VII.
---------------------------------------------------------
REBER: A pleasure to send Happy Birthday
wishes to Mitch Weinstock for June 30.
Jack J. Reber
P.O. Box 2239
Ramona, CA 92065-0938
United States
