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Digital Journal — What do evil banana companies, the rumoured Google phone and sheep testicles have in common? They all made headlines and earned a spot in our weekly round-up of intriguing news brought to you by the site’s global roster of citizen journalists. Where else can you find such an eclectic mix?
There’s nothing like starting Monday with a perfect blend of politics, celebrity and supplemental video. Bocephalus posted Donald Trump’s attack on President Bush, complete with the Wolf Blitzer interview on CNN. The article got the week off to a brilliant start, with some comments resembling story-essays all by themselves. It made CNN actually worth watching.
Monday also gave us a mix of both necessary and playful news: Jishpar warned us about a surge in hijacked PCs (Norton Anti-Virus, save me!), cgull reported on Hooters heading for the Holy Land, paigemom posted a surprising story on banana company Chiquita pleading guilty to funding Colombian terrorists, and n0limitzz showed us one of the better videos of the week — a cappella singers belting out video game tunes from Nintendo classics. What’s next, a yodelling group doing the Halo theme? (Oh man, don’t post this if you do find it. *Shiver*)
On Tuesday, we were treated to a nice flash of humour, courtesy of Planet Janet. How can you go wrong with a headline as cheeky as A Breakthrough for Breaking Wind? Only hours later, Critical Conformity sacked it to us with an article on sheep testicles, complete with Phree joking how he couldn’t stomach seeing “a Mc Ballwich on Mickey D’s menu.” (That’s probably his only comment that was conspiracy-free :).
A nice trend is also starting to emerge as users are spicing their headlines with some wicked creativity. Special mention to gohomelaker for I’m Sorry Occifer, the Sex Toy Made Me Do It — who knew a rubber ducky could fit in there.
Approaching the mid-week hump, Wednesday saw yet another stunning photo exposé by cgull, who continues to show his embedding mastery with a post about the 10 most magnificent trees in the world; malan kept us updated on Iran’s nuclear boldness; and Brandigal reported on an overlooked story about a British person allergic to modern technology. As malan smartly pointed out, “So microwaves do to herface what they do to our food?”
As usual, cgull was a busy writer this week, on Thursday posting more news about the rumoured Google phone. This whole idea of convergence is getting out of hand. In the coming years, should we also expect a Yahoo MP3 player and an Amazon SLR camera?
Despite a tech-heavy day of breaking news — including a mainstream-media YouTube competitor and Apple TV’s debut — new user Baseball in a Cubicle (nice name, dude) lightened up the afternoon with a funny headline about a serious sports issue: Tony La Russa Arrested, Discovered to Be Old. Something tells us Baseball spends his online time reading The Onion.
Whether you’re a fan of classical music or not, it was interesting to read HockeyGirl‘s post on a Brit finding out his piano once belonged to composer Frederic Chopin. It’s like Antiques Roadshow descended on this guy’s doorstep.
And without further ado — the TopFinds Awards to Digital Journalists that brought us some amazing stories this week:
Our fave new DJ Member of the Week goes to pfcb2021, who showed incredible range by posting on war protests, identity theft, senior citizen crime-stoppers and the death of David Letterman sidekick Bud Melman. Always illustrating his stories with photos, pfcb jumps on timely items like a newsroom vet. By the way, happy birthday pfcb, if that is your real name.
This week’s award for TopJournalism goes to geozone for her comprehensive, well-written and thoroughly researched exposé on what U.S. female soldiers endure overseas. It was horrifying to read what these women face, and even more sickening to learn how Big Media often ignores this important topic. This is one more reason why citizen journalism is tugging at the pages of mainstream news.
And in the category of Most Under-Reported Story of the week, the honour belongs to Two-Thirds of World’s Population Could Face Water Shortage in 2025 by sibananda. The article highlighted a pressing issue that should be on the minds of every UN representative, every human being in fact. Bottled-water lovers, this post should make you wake up and smell the drought.
Take a guess which article wins Busiest (and Best Party) Post. That’s right, it’s the First Ever DJ Block Party, pimped by promoters franklin and wolfman2001, and joined by countless DJ stalwarts. As much fun as that thread was, even more entertaining was the live chat feature Chris introduced at comment #216, allowing the late-night party were-animals to gab in real time. Undoubtedly, the revelry won’t stop at one evening’s block party, so be sure to get down with the chat parties often — unless you’re not a fan of booze talk, DJ gossip and Colbert Report cheering sections.
And so ends another wild week at DigitalJournal.com, where you never know which of our stellar journalists will make the front page. And which will get buried by blatantly advertising their e-commerce sites. Oh, noobs, when will they ever learn?
