Interesting little report from the folks at Pew: Older Adults and Social Media.

The report shows that us older folks -- anyone over the age of 50 -- are the fastest growing group when it comes to using social media. That does not mean we outnumber the teens and 20-somthings who seem to have their smart phones permanently attached to their hands, but we are getting there.

Overview

While social media use has grown dramatically across all age groups, older users have been especially enthusiastic over the past year about embracing new networking tools. Social networking use among internet users ages 50 and older nearly doubled—from 22% in April 2009 to 42% in May 2010. Read more »

Author Name: 

Dan Kubiske

Author Email: 

Dan@kubiske.org

Associated Press editor Tom Kent sent out a memo late last week with new guidance on how -- under AP Style -- reporters should refer to the mosque proposed for lower Manhattan.

(You can read the memo here and Kent's discussion of the memo on Facebook.)

Bottom line: It is NOT the "ground zero mosque" and the site under question has been used for prayers for some time already.

The site of the proposed Islamic center and mosque is not at ground zero, but two blocks away in a busy commercial area. We should continue to say it’s “near” ground zero, or two blocks away.

Kent added: Read more »

Once again one of my favorite resources has piles and piles of data about an upcoming event.

The Census Bureau recently released data related to back to school events with plenty of links to datasets and tables to back up the commentary.

Part of the importance of this data is that reporters can go to the tables mentioned to dig out information to compare local data with national or regional data.

Back to School: 2010-2011

By August, summertime will be winding down and vacations will be coming to an end, signaling that back-to-school time is near. Read more »

This was passed on from the SPJ Ethics Committee to a few others outside the committee who are concerned about ethical jouranlism and who have a sense of humor.

Journalism Warning Labels

It seems a bit strange to me that the media carefully warn about and label any content that involves sex, violence or strong language — but there's no similar labelling system for, say, sloppy journalism and other questionable content.

There is even a template for Americans to make their own copies on Avery lables #5160. Click here to download the PDF template.