Super pot. Toxic spuds. Impeaching Dick Cheney. No, it’s not a disjointed dream sequence but some of the top articles that caught our attention this week on DigitalJournal.com.
Digital Journal — In a shortened week, Digital Journalists were still able to dish out thought-provoking posts full of buried news and insight. It’s as if the time-out from DJ actually helped percolate those stories in the minds of users, creating several days of articles both newsworthy and whimsical.
On the
newsworthy side,
malan kept us updated on
how mega-billionaire Bill Gates is spending his riches: investing millions of dollars in a U.S. educational campaign. Gates and another billionaire want to place education high on the 2008 presidential campaign, but I wonder what the Microsoft founder would say if schools refused to install Windows on their PCs because of buggy software?
Also making
political headlines was
Democratic Congressman Dennis Kucinich calling for the impeachment of Vice-President Dick Cheney. Thanks to
Lady_Justice, the article sparked a robust debate, complete with
phree finding more impeachment resolutions and posting them in the forum. Let’s hope the Pentagon isn’t snooping around our site to find out who’s naughty and who’s nice. phree, check your phones for wiretapping.
Speaking of the U.S.,
wolfman2001 penned a revealing post on the
embellishment of the Jessica Lynch saga. Apparently, spin doctors prescribed a dose of propaganda to the well-known story of a U.S. soldier “saved” from an Iraqi hospital by American military. Kudos to wolf for keeping us in the loop with the latest fiction spilling from the imagination of the U.S. government.
Definitely worth another look,
franklin’s post on
poverty-stricken children was both a heart-breaker and an eye-opener. The story flowed into a passionate plea for everyone to approach homeless children and “ask if they need help, offer to buy them lunch, anything!” It was a powerful story that taught us valuable lessons how to treat those less fortunate than ourselves, even if it means buying a $1 pen that you never wanted.
Turning to
tech, several serious stories warrant repeating.
gohomelaker wrote a thorough article on the
MySpace suicide girls, Jodie and Steph. It’s chilling to read about a suicide so brazenly displayed for the entire world to chronicle. Undoubtedly, this story is another sign of how online anonymity is a thing of the past, ushering a new era of anytime-visibility. Also, this is another black mark on MySpace, as if it needed any more
bad press.
Two girls committed suicide after hinting to "friends" about their plan on MySpace, gohomelaker discovered
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Other tech-related stories made headlines this week:
HockeyGirl reported on
how video games were wrongly blamed for the Virginia Tech massacre (I’m surprised Marilyn Manson wasn’t the scapegoat again); laptop battery woes continue, this time with
Acer recalling 27,000 fire-starters, according to
unicorn5; and
cgull convinced us that Joost is the real deal, since the
Web-TV service recently signed major ad deals with 31 brands. You heard it here first — Joost is going to revolutionize new media, whether TV networks like it or not.
Health news got its due this week, thanks to members who were eager to give us the inside scoop of what we stuff into our bodies. For the potheads out there,
kurtrat let them know
how potent the U.S. government considers current marijuana compared to previous years. It raises the inevitable question: “Does that mean 7-11 candy sales have increased in the past decade?”
HockeyGirl is looking out for our intestinal health with her post on
Kentucky Fried Chicken potatoes using cancer-causing chemicals. KFC agreed to pay $340,000 in penalties, even though it’s tough to put a price tag on poisoning someone with killer spuds.
And in the department of
Did We Really Need Science to Prove This?, rob13 alerted us to Duke University researchers who found that
overweight employees cost their bosses twice as much as their slimmer colleagues. Tubby workers were injured more often on the job, filing seven times more medical claims than those in better shape. Well, duh. Should we expect a follow-up study on why skinny people get colder in the winter?
This cookie actually prints the nutrition label on the pastry with icing, according to museinspiredart
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On the quirkier side of health,
museinspiredart told us about an innovative new cookie, where the
nutrition facts are actually printed on the pastry itself. Now that’s a delicious recipe you’d never learn on
Rachael Ray. As always, muse couldn’t help throwing in a joke: advertisers will love this idea, exclaiming, “We can put our logos on the damn cookie…If the conditions are just right, our logo will re-form when it comes out the other end!”
Crime stories also got serious play this week on DJ.
Brandigal reported on a
New Jersey police chief caught pilfering $150,000 from Mothers Against Drunk Driving (that’s a new low, even for New Jersey); malan made us wary of waitresses with his story on
servers selling credit card info to scammers (cash only from now on, folks); and
Leah returned to TopFinds with an intriguing post on the
morality of lethal injections administered to criminals. Read the article to find out why this supposedly humane style of execution is actually causing more suffering than needed. Criminals just don’t get any love, poor guys.
Finally, we present you with this week’s long-awaited
TopFinds Awards for the Digital Journalists par excellence.
There must be something in this member’s diet that keeps him sharp enough to pour out amazing articles every week. Congrats — once again — to
Carpenter S. Newton for winning the
TopJournalism Award for his article on the
Democratic presidential hopefuls and how their personal choices are contrary to their promises to curb CO2 emissions. Carpenter quoted each Dem’s statement on global warming, and described how they all used one of the most polluting modes of transportation to attend a South Carolina university — airplanes, or private jets for the classy few. And here’s a high-five to Carpenter for ending his article with a worthwhile quote from
Leo Tolstoy: “Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.”
Carpenter S. Newton reported on how Democratic presidential hopefuls trying to curb global warming, even though they can't stop using environmentally-unfriendly jets
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Joining the awards circle this week is
GotTheScoop, who won the
TopHeadline trophy for her punchline:
Hey Captain America — Is That a Burrito In Your Tights Or Are You Just Happy to See Me? Reporting on a costumed doctor who stuck a burrito in his tights to impress the ladies — and eventually getting slapped with a sexual harassment charge — GTS spiced the weird news with enough humour to give muse a run for his DJ money. GTS, where do you find this stuff?
We’ve created a new award to recognize the impressive opinion pieces posted on DJ. Winning the inaugural
TopOpEd Award is freshman member
momentsintime with her revealing post
on being a victim of abuse. Both poetic and intense, her short piece packed a punch with as much subtlety as a highway accident. It’s never easy to bare your soul to online, but I got a feeling moments is already regarding DJ members less as strangers and more as confidantes. Congrats, moments, and we look forward to more insightful pieces.
And so wraps up another fast-paced week of citizen journalism. Sure, the week was shortened due to technical difficulties, but the DJ members didn’t just phone in their articles. Everyone did an impressive job of posting interesting pieces that more than made up for the few days of downtime.
Good luck this week, TopFinders!
