The Internet Archive will host the “Dodging the Memory Hole” (DTMH) forum Nov 15 and 16th. This will be the fifth in the series of outreach efforts over the past four years. Presented by the Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute, with support from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the conference will address issues related to archiving and access to online news. We are happy to be able to present a range of people, and projects, involved in a wide cross-section of activities related to news archiving, representing local, national and world-wide efforts. As a bonus, our special guest speaker, Daniel Ellsberg, will highlight the value of the First Amendment and the need to make sure the public has free access to accurate information in the digital age. News has been called the “first rough draft of history.” Some think the risk to this history is at an all time high. The possibility exists that large portions of our cultural record, as captured by journalists and others, will be lost forever if no action is taken to provide long-term solutions for access. The loss of digital records is happening at an unprecedented pace – faster than the loss of comparable print and analog resources. Access and preservation are two sides of the same coin in this regard. The Internet Archive has become increasingly important as a means of collecting and preserving online news content. As if the challenges of capturing more traditional news sources such as newspapers and television stations aren’t enough, the rise of social media as major distribution channels has made it even more difficult to address the complex set of issues involved. Since many of the challenges end up being technical in nature, bringing Internet Archive staff together with the DTMH community offers the chance to identify problems and approach solutions to some of the stumbling blocks we’ve encountered at this point in the journey. Journalists, memory institutions, technologists, historians, political scientists and anyone with an interest in having long-term access to a trustworthy and accurate record of life in the digital age will find this gathering of interest. I urge anyone interested in this urgent and important issue to come join us at the Internet Archive on Nov. 15-16. We have a limited number of seats available. Registration is required, but it is free. If you want register in time to allow us to order food for you, please register by Monday, Oct. 30. Final cutoff for registrations is Nov. 5. I hope to see you there! To learn more about the conference click here. To register for the conference click here. Posted in News | Leave a comment
TV News Record: Third Eye goes to Trump press conference
Posted on October 19, 2017 by Nancy Watzman A weekly round up on what’s happening and what we’re seeing at the TV News Archive by Katie Dahl and Nancy Watzman. Additional research by Robin Chin. All three major U.S. cable news networks covered President Donald Trump’s impromptu press conference with Sen. Mitch McConnell, R., Ky., on Monday, October 16, but there were notable differences in their editorial choices for chyrons – the captions that appear in real-time on the bottom third of the screen – throughout the broadcast. We used the TV News Archive’s new Third Eye chryon extraction data tool to demonstrate these differences, similar to how The Washington Post examined FBI director James B. Comey’s hearing in June 2017. The beauty of the Third Eye tool is you can do this too, any time there is breaking news or a widely covered live event, like yesterday’s Senate judiciary committee hearing where AG Jeff Sessions testified (7:31am-9:46am PT) or the October 5 White House briefing about Puerto Rico (11:20am-11:48am PT). Third Eye data – which includes chyrons from BBC News, CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC – is available for data download, via API, in both raw and filtered formats. (Get into the weeds over on the Third Eye collection page.) Please take Third Eye for a spin, and let us know if you have questions: tvnews@archive.org or @tvnewsarchive. For example, at 11:03 PT, Trump began answering a question about pharmaceutical companies “making money.” MSNBC chooses a chyron that characterizes Trump’s statements as a claim, whereas Fox News displays Trump’s assertion that Obamacare is a disaster. CNN goes with a chyron saying that Trump is “very happy” to end Obamacare subsidies. In the following minute, 11:04, Fox News chooses other bold statements from Trump: “I do not need pharma money” and “I want tax reform this year.” CNN’s chyron instead says Trump “would like to see” tax reform, a less bold statement.