Dengang da far var forsvarsteknologianalytiker...

Dagbladet Information ser ud til at være vendt tilbage til udgangspunktet i sin digitale strategi: At lade alle artikler være frit tilgængelige. Efter et par års flirt med betaling for digitalt indhold ser det ud til at arkiverne igen blevet sluppet ud på cyber-græs. Det betyder også at et par korte indlæg fra min tid som freelance forsvarsanalytiker på SU stikker hovedet frem igen.

Jeg er mest glad for min forudsigelse af at kortrækkende jord-til-jord krydsermissiler af Silkworm typen var den største missiltrussel ved USA's invasion af Irak. Selvom det godt nok kun blev til et smadret bolværk et sted i Kuwait og ikke så meget andet så holdt det stik. Den anden artikel om taktiske kernevåben var til gengæld illustreret af en fin tegning af Per Marquard Otzen.

Ak ja, det var tider...

Bare en lillebitte atombombe

Missilaksen

What they think over there

It seems that it is a time-honored journalistic tradition to report what the other reporters think about us. Danish television and newspapers excel at this kind of navel-gazing. However, the news show Vesti on the Russian television station "Rossia" has alledgedly done this with a sinister twist: they have designed their own version of front page for Times of London. It says that Russian millionaire "Berezovsky is playing us, and it's embarrassing". They have grabbed a piece of opinion from the letters department and constructed a front page around it. I don't know how grave this is - but it sure sounds as a text book example of manipulation of consent and opinion.

All in all it seems that Vesti is pretty obsessed with Beresovskij at the moment: C?? ? ?????? ??????? ????? ?? ??????? ???????????? ?? ??????? (about a French connection of his).

Leading questions

Chris Matthews interviewing the room-mate suite-mate of the Virginia Tech shooter is about the worst piece of journalist interview I've seen this year.


Shooter's roommate speaks (Scroll down).



Matthews bangs on on three subjects of note, that would make the killings fit a typical school shooting/decadent youth/crazy cotton-coat mafia scare-mould:

* Didn't he play some Counter-strike?
* Didn't he have some problems with girls?
* You won't say, but I bet you guys were mean to him, weren't you?

The suite-mate does a good job, not stepping into all of Matthew's puddles. In the end of the interview Matthew reveals his true colours: Talk TV host disguising as a journalist seeking to understand the truth. It's okay to have opinions and prejudices, but - and I might be old-fashioned - you shouldn't pass it off as journalism.