Collective Blog

TNS co-founder Brian Dominick appeared on a short segment of KPFK LA's Uprising Radio show with Sonali Kolhatkar to mark our last day of publishing. Uprising is one of the few alternative media oultets that offered unconditional support and appreciation to TNS over the years. You can listen to the segment here.

Although UC-Berkeley's Academic Senate opted last week to skirt the issue of corporate research funding -- voting down resolutions that would have imposed strong oversight on the management of the new BP-sponsored Energy Biosciences Institute -- students have been more active about confronting questions of scientific integrity. The Senate of the Associated Students of the University of California, representing the UC Berkeley student body, passed a resolution on Thursday, April 26, raising major concerns about the university's partnership with BP.

» Continue reading "Berkeley Students Raise Voices on BP Ties"

If there's any chance you might be in San Francisco on April 21-22, you must hit the Alternative Press Expo, if for no other reason than to meet members of the Cartoonists With Attitude group. You already know several of them as most of TNS's regular cartoon contributors: Matt Bors, Mikhaela Reid, Keith Knight and Stephanie McMillan. I can't think of any group of people I'd rather hang with, or any place I'd rather be this weekend, so YOU need to go drop in on their table -- and tell them The NewStandard sent you.

» Continue reading "Meet TNS Cartoonists at Bay Area Event"

In case you were sitting with your nose to the monitor all afternoon yesterday waiting for your daily fix of TNS original news coverage… so were we. Sorry about that.

We originally had a story ready to go on the Environmental Working Group’s analysis of "hidden" toxic waste in California under a new set of EPA reporting regulations. But we ended up changing our story – both our coverage of it and the subject matter itself – upon realizing that the EWG’s report contained a serious data error. Their original estimates were based on an earlier version of the EPA’s new Toxics Release Inventory reporting regulations.

» Continue reading "Clearing Up Murky Data on Toxics"

We’re not the only news outlet to take a look at Florida’s new clemency policies for people with felony convictions, but we’ve noticed the competition might have overlooked a few things in rushing to get the story out last week.

This article by the New York Times, "In a Break From the Past, Florida Will Let Felons Vote," misstates a statistic on disenfranchised felons in Florida. The reporter writes that the "vast majority" of disenfranchised Floridians are black. Not true, according to the most reliable studies on this issue. They are disproportionately black, but the actual number of blacks officially barred from voting under the felon-disenfranchisement policies do not constitute a majority of the state’s disenfranchised population – more like a third. Next time they try to highlight racial inequality in the system, the Times should take care to avoid enforcing stereotypes about black criminality.

» Continue reading "The Times Falls Short on Florida Felons"

The Teamsters and their allies continue to attempt to smear The NewStandard’s reporting. Here we present a follow-up letter by union press secretary Galen Munroe, then a response from TNS staff.

» Continue reading "More on the Teamsters vs. Mexican Truck(er)s Hubbub"

Shortly after our article on the NAFTA Mexican trucking program ran, I received a stern warning from the communications team at the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. I was informed by their media coordinator during a phone call that the article had basically foreclosed any possibilities of future interviews with the Teamsters. He told me that the phone call was to give us advanced notice of an official response to our story, and in the meantime, we were encouraged to reconsider the headline – the main part of the story to which they objected.

They were very concerned, they said, that the word " ‘Racism’ " in the title of the article unfairly implied that the opposition to the trucking program was, well, racist. This despite our tactful flanking of the term in quotation marks, and the fact that it was drawn from a quoted source in the body of our story.

» Continue reading "Perspectives, agendas and borders"

We've spent months working to revamp the Daily Dispatch mailing that goes out to all Basic and Premium Members of The NewStandard/PeoplesNetworks. And there's still LOTS more in the works. But for now, the major changes include:

1. All-new coding that makes the display more-readable even in Webmail interfaces, and actually reduces the overall size of the file we send out each day.
2. Inclusion of more features already implemented on the Web version of TNS, such as our "Extra" column and our videos. (We'll be adding new elements in the near future.)
3. What you don't see is that this new version is much easier for us to compile each day.

But that's really just the beginning (and the hard part). In coming weeks and months, we'll be adding lots, allowing you to:

1. browse archives of the Daily Dispatch, in case you miss a mailing or want to be able to
2. send any mailing to a list of recipients by email, with a pesonalized message (and you'll be able to save your friends list online, so you don't have to type out their emails each time!)
3. customize the content in your Dispatch (Premium Members only). Just want links instead of complete ION bulletins? Want a table of contents at the top so you don't have to scroll all the way? These and other tweaks will be clicks away for all who contribute to TNS.

We are ALWAYS interested in your feedback and ideas regarding the Daily Dispatch. Please send all comments to support (at) newstandardnews (dot) net

If you aren't already receiving the Daily Dispatch, now is the time to sign up!

Note: This entry was originally posted under the byline Brian Dominick accidentally. Jessica Azulay wrote it.

I was reading this report (pdf) on low-wage work in the United States put out by the think tank, Inclusion, when all of a sudden, a sentence stopped me:

"Some 44 million workers – about one out of every three – held low-wage jobs paying much less than the rest of us are paid."

The "rest of us."

I had been reading along, very interested to know that as someone who makes less than $11 an hour, that I was part of a much larger segment of the US workforce than I had realized. Then, all at once, I felt excluded – and by a think tank that calls itself "Inclusion."

» Continue reading "'The Rest of Us'"

Our article on progressive responses to the prevailing free-trade agenda concluded with a note of uncertainty: a workable alternative has yet to emerge in the debate over US trade policy. At least not in official arenas.

But we did come across efforts outside the Beltway to move toward a more sustainable trade model, showing that the fair-trade system may be bearing fruit on a grassroots level. Though it has yet to boom on a global scale, we thought our readers might appreciate a glimpse (or a second-look, if you’re already a fair-trade consumer) into this ripening side-story.

» Continue reading "Putting 'fair trade' principles to work"