Category Archives: Uncategorized

Everyone’s Gone to the Movies – Original Star Wars Edition

Posted on July 12, 2025 by Ralph Hanson

Editor’s Note: We’re going to have two or three summer movie blog posts coming up in the next week. For this one we’re looking at a rare screening of the original non-special-edition Star Wars. Original 1977 print of Star Wars screened in … Continue reading →

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Media giants doing the come together/separation dance

Posted on June 17, 2025 by Ralph Hanson

Where have I been? Busy end of the semester and then a fair bit of traveling with family and on the motorcycle. Still have a fair amount of travel coming up, but will try to keep up better here. Warner … Continue reading →

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Free Speech and High School Students – Who Controls What Gets Printed?

Posted on April 27, 2025 by Ralph Hanson

It’s never good for a high school when a reporter or editor of the school paper is writing a commentary for the Washington Post. Generally, when that happens, the school administration or school board has come down hard with some … Continue reading →

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How “Death of a Unicorn” connects with reality

Posted on April 25, 2025 by Ralph Hanson

So there is a strange, violent, bloody, incredibly funny movie out this spring called Death of a Unicorn starring Paul Rudd, Jenna Ortega, Téa Leoni, and Richard E. Grant. Dear Wife and I saw it Thursday evening at The World Theatre, … Continue reading →

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Go For Broke – When old editorials become new again

Posted on March 25, 2025 by Ralph Hanson

I’ve been teaching Civil Rights Era Pulitzer Prize-winning editorials in my commentary class since 1988. And it seems crazy to me how some of them keep emerging to the surface from current news events over the years. For example, Ralph … Continue reading →

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Honoring World Poetry Day 2025

Posted on March 21, 2025 by Ralph Hanson

In honor of World Poetry Day 2025, here are two of my favorite poems. The first is by West Virginia poet Tom Andrews, who in addition to being a great poet was also a first-generation hemophiliac who died way too … Continue reading →

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When Rachel Maddow Stood Up Against MSNBC Management

Posted on February 25, 2025 by Ralph Hanson

I don’t have a lot to say here about individual cable news/talk hosts. For one thing, I pay a lot more attention to newspapers and other print outlets than I do to broadcast/cable. But it’s also because I don’t think … Continue reading →

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Return to “Pink Slime” Journalism: AI Scraping Edition

Posted on February 11, 2025 by Ralph Hanson

Last fall I had a post about the phenomenon known as “pink slime” journalism. Basically it’s where websites churn out content using either low-paid writers or generative AI. The “news” is either low-quality scrapings from legitimate sites or paid political … Continue reading →

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Social Media Change 2025 Part 3: TikTok – The Hate/Love relationship

Posted on February 4, 2025 by Ralph Hanson

Social media are going through some big changes this winter. Meta/Facebook has changed its policies banning hate speech and deceptive information on its platforms; TikTok was facing a ban, shut itself down, and then came back with the blessings of … Continue reading →

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Social Media Change 2025 Part 2: Breaking Up With Meta

Posted on January 27, 2025 by Ralph Hanson

Social media are going through some big changes this winter. Meta/Facebook has changed its policies banning hate speech and deceptive information on its platforms; TikTok was facing a ban, shut itself down, and then came back with the blessings of … Continue reading →

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