Martin Langfield's Blog, page 2

Good news amid the noise

My former mothership Reuters has announced the expansion of its award-winning e-learning course on helping newsrooms around the world spot deepfakes and manipulated media in 12 additional languages.

This is an excellent resource, instructive for anyone interested in learning how to spot real fakery and manipulation.

 

Good news amid the dreck

My former mothership Reuters has announced the expansion of its award-winning e-learning course on helping newsrooms around the world spot deepfakes and manipulated media in 12 additional languages.

This is an excellent resource, instructive for anyone interested in learning how to spot real fakery and manipulation.

 

Bipartisan! Practical! Non-incendiary!

Shocking, I know, but here are 14 sensible recommendations for the upcoming U.S. elections and an executive summary that will take maybe two minutes to read. What are some other exciting words? Pragmatic. Non-inflammatory.  Feasible. Worth a read.

Fair Elections During a Crisis: Bipartisan and Diverse Blue-Ribbon Group of Scholars and Thinkers Releases Report on Urgent Changes Needed for November U.S. Elections

— Read on www.law.uci.edu/news/press-releases/2020/fair-elections-report.html

Slowing the Infodemic

Useful tips and tools here:

How to Spot COVID-19 Misinformation | National Association for Media Literacy Education

In response to the significant amount of misinformation surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, Thomson Reuters and the National Association for Media Literacy Education (NAMLE) are teaming up to provide educators with classroom resources that will inspire relevant and rich discussion about media literacy. As part of these efforts, we are offering a podcast titled Slowing the
Read...

Fact vs. fiction

This is a time when facts save lives and misinformation can kill. Here are some useful resources Ive consulted in recent weeks:

[image error] A detail from my fathers paramedic uniform insignia. Photo by Martin Langfield.

Newsguard: Who are the misinformation super-spreaders?

Smithsonian Magazine: How to Avoid Misinformation About COVID-19

Ethical Journalism Network

News Literacy Project

Chartbeat

Stat

Reuters Fact Checking 

Soldier’s Heart (original version)

This is the original clean version of my soundscape Soldiers Heart, recorded April 27, 2019.

Soldiers heart is a 19th-century term, used during the American Civil War, for what was later called shell shock or combat fatigue, nowadays known as post-traumatic stress syndrome.

I have been focusing on creating soundscapes based on time distortions of  improvised drum patterns. I am interested in possible connections between soundscapes, which I believe can slow the mind into contemplative...

If we can’t be saints, let’s be healers

In this time of virus lockdown, social distancing and polarization, these lines from the final pages of “The Plague” by Albert Camus (1947) seem useful:

“(He) decided then to write the account which ends here, in order not to be among those who stay silent, in order to leave at least a memory of the injustice and violence done to them, and to state simply what we learn in the midst of plagues, that in humankind there are more things to admire than things to despise. But he knew nevertheless that...

If we can’t be saints, let’s try to be healers

In this time of virus lockdown, social distancing and polarization, these lines from the final pages of The Plague by Albert Camus (1947) seem useful:

(He) decided then to write the account which ends here, in order not to be among those who stay silent, in order to leave at least a memory of the injustice and violence done to them, and to state simply what we learn in the midst of plagues, that in humankind there are more things to admire than things to despise. But he knew nevertheless that...

If we can’t be saints, let’s try at least to be healers

In this time of virus lockdown, social distancing and polarization, these lines from the final pages of The Plague by Albert Camus (1947) seem useful:

(He) decided then to write the account which ends here, in order not to be among those who stay silent, in order to leave at least a memory of the injustice and violence done to them, and to state simply what we learn in the midst of plagues, that in humankind there are more things to admire than things to despise. But he knew nevertheless that...

Fact vs. fiction

This is a time when facts save lives and misinformation can kill.  Fact boxes like this one from Reuters help make a difference.

[image error] A detail from my fathers paramedic uniform insignia. Photo by Martin Langfield.