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Night Of The Slasher Makes Meta-Horror Personal (#SXSW Film Review)
Janelle, the protagonist of "Night of the Slasher," dressed in her underwear, a white t-shirt, and a flannel shirt, holds a meat cleaver in a suburban kitchen. (Night of The Slasher publicity still)
March 21, 2016
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Night Of The Slasher Makes Meta-Horror Personal (#SXSW Film Review)

Posted in Journalism, and SXSW

A supernatural serial killer stalks a teenage girl after she smokes pot, drinks beer, dances half-naked and has casual sex.

It’s an image that’s moved beyond cliché and into the realm of “meta-horror,” when the genre comments on its own obsessions with slut-shaming and male power fantasies. Meta-horror may have reached its ultimate expression in Joss Whedon’s “Cabin In The Woods” (2012), which reimagines the tropes of horror films as a dark, Lovecraftian ritual that also implicates the viewer, wagging a finger at us for enjoying the gore and the terror quite so much.

Shant Hamassian’s 2015 short film “Night Of The Slasher” (2015) is also meta-horror, but it takes place on a more personal, even intimate scale. Jenelle (Lily Berlina, expressing a great deal with almost no words) works through a literal checklist of horror tropes to deliberately attract the killer. The scar on her neck tells us she’s encountered him before, and we soon realize she’s out for vengeance.

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SXSW Day 1: Abortion, Prison Technology & More
A medical professional holds a patient's hand in an abortion clinic. ("Trapped" publicity still)
March 11, 2016
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SXSW Day 1: Abortion, Prison Technology & More

Posted in Journalism, and SXSW

I’ve made it down to the Austin Convention Center for the first time at this year’s South By SouthWest, and I’m excited to kick off my coverage.

Today I am taking it slow — spent the morning wrapping up some work for MintPress News’ TV show, Behind The Headline, and allowed myself some extra time to ride my bike downtown because of the traffic apocalypse caused by SXSW’s first day and Barack Obama’s visit. It still only took me about 15 minutes, and I’m feeling pretty out of shape from the winter too!

In case you’re wondering, I’m not attending Obama’s keynote address because this is the kind of topic that will be amply covered by other journalists and in other outlets. If you want a sneak preview, check out the hashtag #POTUS. And yes, apparently Obama stopped at Torchy’s Tacos on the way here!

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Media Analysis Reveals Fox News Only Tells The Truth 22% Of The Time
In this Jan. 2, 2015 photograph, a sign at a Black Lives Matter protest outside Fox News headquarters in New York City reads, "Fox News Is Racist." (Flickr / The All-Nite Images)
March 5, 2016
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Media Analysis Reveals Fox News Only Tells The Truth 22% Of The Time

Posted in Journalism, and MintPress News

Less than half the “facts” broadcast on Fox News are even partially true, according to an ongoing analysis by an independent fact-checking project.

Some recent lies told by on-air personalities and guests seem designed to stoke fears over the safety of refugees living in the United States and to spread untruths about American support for gun control laws.

Punditfact, a joint project by the Tampa Bay Times and media analysts from Politifact, offers “scorecards” on the accuracy of the TV networks and major TV personalities.

Last updated in January, the Punditfact scorecard for Fox News shows that just 10 percent of statements made on the network have been “True” and another 12 percent “Mostly True” since the project began in 2014. Even generously including the 19 percent of statements deemed “Half True” reveals that just 41 percent of Fox News statements can be deemed “true” to some degree.

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A new direction for my journalism
An orange and white cat leaps through the air in a typical living room. (Flickr / Darron BirgonHeier)
March 2, 2016
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A new direction for my journalism

Posted in Archive, Journalism, MintPress News, and SXSW

SXSW is known for the amazing diversity of talent it features, but also gets a bad rap for being corporate dominated and inaccessible to many people. It deserves a lot of that criticism, honestly. But, since I have access to essentially every part of it, I should take advantage of that and share it with all of you.

I want to give you my unique gonzo perspective on the event, and report on some of the weirdest, most interesting, or just unfairly overlooked panels, artists, and films. SXSW takes place this year from March 11-19. Here’s a small sample of what I’m looking forward to covering:

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A New Look For Approx. 8,000 Words
Tthe sun rises over the Colorado River as seen from Longhorn Dam in Austin, Texas, in this October 11, 2011 photograph. (Flickr / Marcus Calderon)
February 12, 2016
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A New Look For Approx. 8,000 Words

Posted in Journalism, Life, and Website

If this isn’t your first visit, you may notice that my website changed in the past month.

I created this website when I finally got tired of keeping a LiveJournal and decided it was time to launch a real online identity. I’ve been a writer in various genres since my teens, but 8 years ago I was mostly focused on writing fiction. In 2008, I designed Approximately 8,000 Words to look like an old-fashioned manuscript format submission that a writer might send to an editor.

It’s halfway through a new decade, and I’m now working full time as a journalist. My homepage was overdue for a new look. I’m still fine-tuning things, and slowly crossposting most of my reports for MintPress News and other sites, but I hope you enjoy what you see.

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How Glenn Greenwald & Facebook Learned To Stop Worrying & Love Encryption
File: A USB data stick with features from a bank safe, including a combination wheel, added. (Flickr / Stockmonkeys.com)
June 5, 2015
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How Glenn Greenwald & Facebook Learned To Stop Worrying & Love Encryption

Posted in Journalism, and MintPress News

Facebook now offers users the ability to encrypt their notification emails using PGP, a freely available encryption method proven to thwart NSA surveillance. It’s the latest attempt by social media and other Internet providers to offer increased privacy to their users in the wake of the Edward Snowden leaks.

PGP, which stands for “Pretty Good Privacy,” is a freely available encryption standard that’s been available for decades. PGP encryption works through a technique called asymmetric encryption. Users of the software create both a private and a public encryption key. The public key can be shared freely with anyone who wants to send encrypted messages, and those messages can only be read by the person who holds the private key and its associated password.

The new feature, launched Monday, offers users the option to upload a public PGP key to Facebook. With this feature enabled, Facebook notification emails will only be legible to their intended recipient, using the corresponding password and private encryption key. Without encryption, anyone with access to a user’s email (potentially including hackers, police, or government agencies) could read the contents of private messages included in some notification emails.

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