Archimedes’ Hot Tub

Some fun content went up this last full week of June. I curated this item on a Hindu pundit (yes, the real thing, though it’s pandit, in his vernacular) who has spent more than 20 years in Alberta, Canada. I find stories of people maintaining a spiritual practice in the face of massive materialism worth mulling.

I also found the silver lining in news that a major British bank suffered a massive system failure. And I gave the primary edit to this item from India, on a possible answer to the country’s lack of toilets.
We had several fascinating looks at the connections between America and the world this week. This unusual item from Turkey looked at the impact American creationists are having on science education in that country. Our piece on how the crisis in Syria affects Syrian-Americans showed the poignance of their situation.

In the wake of news that AIDS is growing in the rural South, we looked for attitudes and answers in two small Alabama towns.
We also advanced a story about a Russian official who wants the U.S. to shut down a Montana orphanage. Not every day a plucky startup gets a jump on the rest of the U.S. press.

LIfe at a startup; I gave up on getting this post to work in Chrome and Safari almost four weeks ago. Finally was able to spend a little time uninstalling and reinstalling Firefox. Back in business!

Here’s what I did back then:

Looking back at what I did for Latitude News last week. I edited four solid pieces:

This in-depth look at Norway’s Breivik identity crisis.
a Q&A with Ruchir Sharma on his book Breakout Nations.

I also edited this strong two-part series on the odd collaboration against TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline by Albertan oilworkers and Texan farmers and ranchers, two groups you’d expect would support the pipeline.

I dashed off these curated items on

The start of summer music festival season and how China’s push for renewable energy is shaking up the U.S. startup scene.

I gave a primary edit to these curated items on the

• dominance of foreign drivers at the Indy 500 (won yet again by a foreign driver);
• Zen and the art of arguing;
• Sweden’s egalitarian Twitter feed;
• Chinese women line up in search of a Zuckerberg of their own.

A good week of content. Onward!

I worked up this post for Latitude News on this report by NORC on theism. It purports to offer a view of belief in God around the world, but as you will see, I think it lacks the breadth of sample to say any such thing. I did find it interesting (though I personally was annoyed to see the report use waiver instead of waver). Hope you do, too.

We learn about ourselves in part from how others react to us. Those reactions usually get filtered; it’s polite to find something positive to say, and to soften critical remarks.

Journalists don’t do that. We are supposed to hold up the mirror and show you your jowls. So it was with some trepidation that Latitude News agreed to let a journalism student from Northeastern student base her final project on us.

Her report shows us what we think of ourselves. Other than calling us “tiny,” she offers little assessment of our effort. Instead, it’s all us telling her what we think. She uses links from our stories to illustrate points. She may or may not agree with what we are saying; she plays it straight. Journalists should play it straight, but when straight means telling people what your one source said, it feels like a one-sided story. Of course, it’s my side that’s being heard, so I should be happy.

i did scratch my head at one quote I gave her. Did I really say it’s better when a staff is small? Maybe I did, but I can’t remember why.

Here’s the video she shot of us talking about trying to create more conversational journalism:

After years of covering startups, I’m working at one: Latitudenews.com. I’ve been there pretty much full time since December. I’m assigning and editing pieces like A run to save olive trees in Palestine, Michigan learns to love, lean on China, The next boom continent: Africa and Europeans thirsty for U.S. craft beers. I ‘curate’ items from the foreign press in English. I’m also learning to think about how to promote stories via social media, which is not a skill that I needed to think about in my prior editorial roles.
Today we got our first real coverage, a hopeful post from Paul Gillin’s Newspaper Death Watch. He titled it Global news with a local twist. The site has an ‘intriguing philosophy,” Paul wrote. He noted that we aim to “illustrate the local impact of far away events.”
We’ve been kicking around a catchphrase that we offer “global reporting that listens — and responds.” That aims to capture our efforts to create a conversation about stories, and infuse them with perspectives from readers around the world. What do you think of it?