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USA Edition | Today Is Sunday, May 19, 2013 |
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Welcome To Newsroom Magazine
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Thanks To You We're Growing Faster Than Ever Before
Chances are you've noticed that Newsroom Magazine is a very different publication.
We care about journalism -- and we're well aware many other organizations do it far better than we.
Our editorial standards, rules of custody, and skeptical editing for everything we produce, disseminate or expose to public viewing reflects a seriousness of purpose.
Six years after our founding, Newsroom Magazine continues to evolve the online publishing and preservation model we pioneered.
There is good news to share: Newsroom Magazine is is thriving.
And some less good news: Our limited resources, both journalistically and financially, are limiting our expansion of content.
Online News Preservation
In the six years since its founding, Newsroom Magazine has extended the field of news publishing into previously uncharted areas.
We take a long range view of news -- one that considers both timeliness and historical merit.
What we do, and how we do it, was not possible in the print media era -- for our content is both timely and timeless in the sense that we share the power of immediacy with all online media plus the perseverance of an encyclopedia.
Newsroom Magazine's publishing model goes beyond immediacy -- for unlike the newspaper era -- what we publish is permanently preserved. And tagged, indexed, and constantly updated by automated sitemap sharing with Google, Yahoo, Bing, Yandex, Baidu, Sogou, Ewatch, Alexa, Facebook, and others at home and far away.
All of our content, is meant to be preserved. Thanks to the capture and storage of our content at Google, including all updates and changes, and full collection archiving by the U.S. Internet Archives, everything we say, write, opine -- whether wise, foolish, or inconsequential-- is preserved.
Newsroom Magazine content remains forever online, searchable and accessible 24 hours a day worldwide.
What's Hot Is Rarely What Matters
What we publish today is rarely as timely as the more traditional publications and online newspapers. What we choose to publish, sometimes days or months after a story first breaks, or on a subject neglected by most commercial media, is chosen to reflect one aspect of an ongoing reality for long term preservation.
From a handful of English-only readers when we published our first article -- the 1958 Edward R. Murrow speech before the Radio Television Directors Association in Chicago -- we have grown and wizened about our responsibilities to our readers and our own limitations and shortfalls.
Our most read article so far this year, The Adventures Of Bernie In Wonderland, was published November 23rd, 2009. The article consists of the unexpurgated SEC interview of Harry Markopolos in the Bernie Madoff Ponzi swindle case. It is not very interesting reading and it is very long -- but we published it in the belief that what it revealed was important and unlikely to remain online in its original format.
Newsroom Magazine's Storehouse Grows Every Day
The number of publications who devote themselves to publishing credible, responsible and probative content for posterity has dwindled.
Today Newsroom Magazine publishes a storehouse of credible, probative and relevant content -- well over 5000 articles including commentaries, essays, definitions, photographs, stories, reviews, discussions, tutorials, and logical explanations.
Our readership is nearly three times was it was only last year. Few might come to our content for entertainment -- for our purpose is otherwise.
If You Publish, They Will Come
We are read on Capitol Hill, along K Street, and in the halls of government inside the beltway and around the world.
We are read daily on college campuses at home and abroad. We're visited from military ships at sea. We serve law-firms, major corporations, Wall Street the UK Parliament, state governments and cities with credible useful information.
Some of the world's most prestigious news organizations use Newsroom Magazine for fact-checking.
Government Information Unfiltered, Sometimes Imperfect
The amount of official news proffered each day by government, whether at home or abroad, is accelerating. Some of it newsworthy, most of it not.
Our job is to thoughtfully choose what's worthy of the attention of our readers.
About 1% of government issued news we receive each day qualifies as newsworthy. Only the most relevant, or reflective of government at its best, or at its worst, or evidence of overreach, or ineptitude makes it newsworthy.
We leave the issue of deciding which if any of these qualifications applies to what we publish up to the reader.
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All of our government news content includes above the headline call out meant to convey the principal facts, action or information for those with little time to read a long document.
Our job is to carefully and skeptically choose relevant governmental content for our readers -- and to include the unexpurgated original source material, whose chain of custody we control.
Online Editorial Standards, Ethics And Purpose
Our commitment to time-honored journalistic standards and a clear statement about the ethics to which we agree to be held today and tomorrow, Newsroom Magazine began publication when the Internet was young -- 2006.
Our prime mission then, as now, is to publish non political ideas, definitions, essays and editorials.
To speak to the state of this honorable calling.
And to inform the public about those things, events and ideas that matter most to us all.
Today, tomorrow, forever.
Editorial Standards & Policies
| Browsing Materials Tagged Ramadan | Organized In Date Order | [ 1 items ] | |||
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.jpg "Ummayad Mosque (Sunni), Damascus, Syria")
Ummayad Mosque ( Sunni )
The lunar month of Ramadan began almost three weeks ago which means that observant Muslims are fasting from sunrise ( about 5:30 ) to sunset ( after 7:00 pm these days ). That means no food, no water, no sex, and most difficult of all, no smoking.
Demetri Blaisdell
American Teacher Living In Syria
Damascus, Syria
American Muslims Celebrate Holiday Season
Salaam Alaikum
Today is Eid al-Fitr — an important Muslim holiday marking the end of the annual Ramadan fast, a period of purification celebrated by both Sunni and Shia Muslims.
Although Islam is an old and honored religion, neither the faith nor its followers are well understood in all parts of the world.
Newsroom Magazine contributor Mikael Blaisdell recently received a holiday email from his nephew Demetri, an American English teacher living in Damascus, Syria. Demetri Blaisdell grew up in northern California — later to become an avid traveler, great story teller and fluent in Arabic. He has traveled in nearly every Muslim country and made friends of ordinary people he met along the way.
Those of us who have Muslim acquaintances and friends, or who have traveled the Middle East know well the friendliness and courtesy of Arab families and communities.
Somehow the reality of Islamic family life and values has escaped popular media coverage in the United States which has contributed to misunderstanding about Arabic culture and Muslim beliefs and traditions.
When Mikael passed on his nephew’s family email to me, I thought it provided a decisively American view of life in Damascus even as it revealed the substantive values of Islamic tradition and an insider’s view of Ramadan and the Feast Of Eid al-Fitr being celebrated today by millions of American Muslims.
Feliz Eid al-Fitr!
Email Sent To Demetri’s Parents And Family
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September 7, 2010
Dear Friends and Family,
Ramadan Kareem!
While America fights over whether or not our president is a Muslim and the so-called Ground Zero mosque, Syria ( and the rest of the Muslim world ) has undergone a dramatic change. The lunar month of Ramadan began almost three weeks ago which means that observant Muslims are fasting from sunrise ( about 5:30 ) to sunset ( after 7:00 pm these days ).
That means no food, no water, no sex, and most difficult of all, no smoking. But in a majority-Muslim country, everything changes to accommodate the new schedule. All but the most high-end restaurants are closed during the day and you won’t find anybody eating, drinking, or smoking in the street. The one thing not cooperating is the heat, which has been over 100°F for the last three weeks straight.
Sayeeda Zeinab Mosque ( Shiite )
In the half an hour before Iftar ( literally breakfast or the breaking of the fast ), the city grows increasingly quiet. Nearly every shop closes, traffic disappears, and even taxi cabs desert the eerily quiet city streets.
For the next hour, the city is almost silent as they break their fasts with traditional juices ( tamarind and apricot in particular ), dried dates, and a large meal.
Syrians eat this meal with family or friends before nearly the entire population emerges from their homes, descending on the city’s cafes, sweets shops, and sabara vendors ( sabara is a delicious cactus fruit sold here in the summer ). The ever-popular soap operas filmed in Syria, Egypt, and even Turkey release extra episodes to cater to the Ramadan schedule.
People stay out late, eating a very late dinner ( suhour ) at around 4:00 in the morning before going to bed and—work schedule-permitting—sleeping until late morning or early afternoon the next day. Even the American Language Center, where I teach, changes its schedule accordingly: The regular 8 AM to 8:30 PM schedule is compressed by an hour and a half by eliminating breaks and shortening the time between classes. As I teach at the end of the day, the effect on my students is noticeable. They are exhausted, unenthusiastic, and vacant by the end of a long day of fasting.
But despite the difficulties of fasting and the oppressive heat, the city is still wrapped in a holiday atmosphere, not unlike the buzz of the Christmas season in America. It will all wrap up with the three-day Eid al-Fitr holiday, where Syrians Muslims buy new clothes, donate meat and money to the poor, and feast with their families.
Apart from Ramadan, life goes on here in Syria.
About 6 weeks ago, the British rock/hip hop group the Gorillaz came to play a show at the Damascus Citadel. A couple thousand people showed up to see a really impressive act. De La Soul and Bobby Womack performed along-side the group and they put on an almost surreal show—for a variety of political and social reasons, big-name musical acts rarely make it to Syria.
We went on one other funny outing with some Syrian friends a month or so ago. A little ways outside of Aleppo, there is a large pool complex/water park, complete with water slides, a wave pool, and a high dive. It was a strange but fun day as I haven’t been to a water park in at least a decade. Afterwards we went to the swankiest mall in Syria ( oddly enough outside of Aleppo ) and basked in the glow of capitalism and globalization.
Finally, we ventured into Aleppo to show our Damascene friends the second largest city in their country. Somehow, these two Syrians in their mid-20s had never made it to Aleppo before. Perhaps this is best explained by the deep-seated rivalry between the two cities, at a social, cultural, and even linguistic level.
That’s everything from my end. We get this weekend off for Eid al-Fitr, so we’re heading up to the mountains for the holiday.
Love,
Demetri
.jpg "Sayeeda Zeinab Mosque, Damascus, Syria")