It's been just a little over a month since malintZINE hit the internets. In 40 days it's already garnered more than 14,500 views. By the time you read this, it could easily be close to 16,000. That's how fast it's taken off.

The blog describes itself as a "an online zine by radical women and queer people of color." From the blog, its grown to have a presence on Facebook, Twitter and tumblr. If you're new to the blog, start from the bottom up to understand why it started — in reaction to an effort by some members of TUSD's Mexican-American Studies movement discouraging discussion on domestic violence and the arrest of a former MAS leader.

MalintZINE aims to highlight sexual and gender violence issues front and center, rather than force women and others to be silent. Social movements don't grow and evolve unless they are called out on their bullshit and that's part of what this blog is doing. But it also features posts on Chicana feminism, gender identity, and poetry that reacts to what is taking place in Tucson right now.

Members of the collective have received a lot of unfounded criticism. Some complaints focus on the fact that most of the posts don't have bylines. Perhaps this newest post offers an explanation:

Great news for all of you folks out there who has missed seeing me host the Friday night Political Roundtable: The AZ Illustrated makeover is nearly complete and the long-running newsmagazine will be returning to the air next week.

The new AZ Illustrated will feature new hosts each night of the week (except for Friday, where you'll still see me). There's a new focus each evening, including metro news on Monday, science and tech on Tuesday, nature and environment on Wednesday, arts and entertainment on Thursday and politics on Friday.

I'm thrilled to be getting back into the studio and excited about the new lineup that the AZPM team has put together. The full press release, with details about the new hosts and focus, is below the cut.

Brian J. Pedersen, frequent Tucson Weekly contributor and former employee of the Arizona Daily Star, was mentioned, in a sideways fashion, in a New York Times article discussing whether or not speech posted on the Internet is protected by law, according to the National Labor Relations Board.

In Pedersen's case, they felt it wasn't:

The N.L.R.B. had far less sympathy for a police reporter at The Arizona Daily Star.

Frustrated by a lack of news, the reporter posted several Twitter comments. One said, “What?!?!?! No overnight homicide. ... You’re slacking, Tucson.” Another began, “You stay homicidal, Tucson.”

The newspaper fired the reporter, and board officials found the dismissal legal, saying the posts were offensive, not concerted activity and not about working conditions.

You can find Pedersen's comments about the firing and subsequent actions here and here.

Pedersen had this to say today via Twitter:

Got cited by a major international media outlet as an example of how not to use Twitter. What did YOU accomplish today? #strangelyproud

On a related note, make sure to check out this week's cover feature, written by Pedersen!

Although the certainty of this Manti Te’o hoax news is unclear, it is sure to bring about more annoying puns and terms that will stick around much longer than the news of the story will.

“Te’oing,” a play on words from “Tebowing,” is already circuiting the Twitter and social media world as a term for making up a fake girlfriend.

For any of you who haven’t heard about the Te’o debacle, sports blog Deadspin reported yesterday that the Notre Dame football star had a fake girlfriend, who supposedly passed away in September. Maybe he created her and killed her off for the publicity to help him win the Heisman trophy this year (which didn't help; he finished second in the Heisman running). Or possibly, he was caught up in a Catfish-like, online dating scandal.

Manti Te’o had the public eating out of the palm of his hand with his heartbreaking story of how his girlfriend Lennay Kekua, died of leukemia. On top of the death of the love of his life, his grandma also passed away on the same day (terrible, right?).

Wrong. Turns out, this “girlfriend” never existed. Still terrible and real however, Annette Santiago, his grandma, died on Sept. 11, 2012, at the age of 72, according to Social Security Administration records in Nexis.

To read the entirety of this lengthy article that examines the different angles of the story, first released by Deadspin, click here.

• courtesy of the Tampa Bay Times, via the Associated Press

I have this vision where every time a relative or unassuming stranger tells me that journalism is dying, I cackle and tell them, “You’re next.”

Alas, there are much more respectable ways to respond to the all-too-familiar accusations that journalists face regarding the future of our profession. As a fledgling writer just now beginning to dabble in work of the professional-caliber, I need all the advice I can get, and this week I stumbled across some I can covet.

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Eugene Patterson, who died last week from complications of cancer, spent the majority of his 89 years crusading for the civil rights movement, progressivism and improved ethical standards for journalists. It seems only fitting that his last thoughts on the profession he worked so diligently to reform, dictated to a friend last November and available in their entirety here on Poynter, can be applied not only to journalism, but any industry on the cusp of a major transitionary period.

Eric Bolling, co-host of Fox News's The Five, a panel-discussion show that discusses news and issues of the day, pointed something out yesterday that apparently shook him to his core: liberal propaganda within an elementary school math textbook.

Detailing the distributive property.

No, really.

A part of me feels that this is simply too silly to even bother commenting on—after all, it's a show that features talking heads making mountains out of molehills. It's a show that, all things being equal, is about as culturally important as The View.

But what gets me, beyond this ridiculous assertion that Bolling hopefully pulled out of a pile of ridiculous items just to fill some time, were the responses of the panel members:

Co-host Kimberly Guilfoyle said that she goes through all of her six-year-old's homework papers, adding that she was now on "high alert after this inappropriateness!"

"So it starts in third grade [with] 'Distribute The Wealth,' and guess what happens? Through their whole educational experience they continually get indoctrinated through college," a concerned Bolling said, holding up the math sheet once again.

Co-host Dana Perino said that the assignment was probably written by an "Occupy Wall Street grad student."

Bolling made one last appeal to parents to check their children's textbooks, particularly their history books. He said he was once looking through his child's history textbook and read a section on the war in Iraq. "They were very, very liberally biased, saying George Bush went in there because he heard there were weapons of mass destruction and they were never found. It was a very liberal bias to the history books," Bolling said.

Considering that the CIA admitted that we entered Iraq under bad intelligence regarding WMDs, it might be safe to admit that history has a liberal bias in this case.

From the fine folks at Tucson Meet Yourself, their latest online newsletter features a video from one of Maribel Alvarez's UA folklore students that's worth your time (don't blame us if it makes you hungry and in the mood to listen to more Agustin Lara):

Food and Love. The two have been connected through the ages. Our speech is sprinkled with phrases about seduction, satisfaction, longing, indulgence, moderation that often implicate both basic human needs: affection and nourishment. Jose Serrano, a student in Dr. Maribel Alvarez's folklore course "Food Narratives" this fall has produced a beautiful video honoring his "Grandma's Gorditas."

Grandma's Gorditas-HD 720p from J. Serrano on Vimeo.

So how many of you out there shopped local this holiday season? I know I tried my best, but while running errands with my mom one day, I realized that in preparing for the holidays there's not much you can do except buy local — masa for the tamales (Alejandro's for us), extra tortillas for a tamale party (Anita Street Bakery and La Tauna), and meat for the tamales (American Meat Market — BTW, they have bacon-wrapped weenies in the freezer section that I might write about later).

If you need more reminding on how important shopping local is, we came across a video produced by former Tucson Unified School board candidate and city council staffer Miguel Ortega with the purpose of doing just that — reminding you all the good reason to shop local as much as you can.

The video is part of a project Ortega is working on called Vamonos Tours. So far, Ortega told us, KXCI and Access Tucson are running the video as a public service announcement. The goal he said is to get local businesses to sponsor these buy-local messages.

"These are not commercials for their businesses. They have no say in the content. We only guarantee that we will tape the message at their place of business, use their product or services to underscore the message and thank them for sponsoring the PSA," Ortega said.

For more info on his latest project, go to its Facebook page at Vamonos Tours Arizona.

In the wake of Sandy Hook and the national discussion on gun laws, White Plains, New York newspaper The Journal-News, has posted an interactive map on their website, featuring the names and addresses of every licensed gun owner in three counties.

The map is a companion to an article entitled "The gun owner next door: What you don't know about the weapons in your neighborhood," an article with a fear-inducing title meant to raise discussion about how much we should know about our gun-owning neighbors.

The gun owner information was obtained via Freedom of Information Act requests, as gun licenses are considered to be on the public record in New York.

Obviously, their move attracted a fair amount of negative attention, as noted by a New York Times blog post:

The map thrust the paper directly into the heated national debate over guns that has followed the mass shooting in Newtown, Conn., further churning the already frothy argument between those seeking curbs on certain types of weapons and those advocating gun rights.

“Now everyone knows where the LEGAL GUNS are kept, a valuable piece of information for criminals,” wrote an irate Facebook commenter who gave his name as Mike Pandolfo. “Why don’t you do something helpful, like trying to find out where the ILLEGAL GUNS are kept? That would be helpful to the noncriminal population.”

The comment was characteristic of the reaction of many of the thousands that had been attached to the article as it flew around social networking and news organizations’ sites, seemingly shared more in outrage than in support.

As part of that outrage, writer/blogger/real-estate agent Christopher Fountain took the Journal-News, and its owners at Gannett, to task by posting the home addresses and contact information on his blog in an effort to allow people to contact the reporters, editors and publisher themselves.

This spurs a huge debate about journalistic ethics now—the Poynter Institute is just one of many outlets that have questioned the move:

Timeliness is not reason enough to publish this information, though there are important reasons — including public safety — that journalists regularly invade people’s privacy.

Journalists broadcast and publish criminal records, drunk driving records, arrest records, professional licenses, inspection records and all sorts of private information. But when we publish private information we should weigh the public’s right to know against the potential harm publishing could cause.

My former colleague Bob Steele used to compare the journalist’s role in this situation to a doctor who had to decide whether to perform surgery, knowing she would have to cut through healthy tissue to get to a tumor. The damage caused to the skin is outweighed by the good that comes from removing the tumor. But, as Steele used to say, the surgeon uses great care and years of training to cause only the damage that is justifiable — and no more.

The question is, was the damage caused by the Journal-News justifiable? Was there even a tumor to extract here? If anything, it seems like they've caused damage, as a New York state senator is interested in closing up those records in New York State—which raises concern as to whether or not similar moves may take place across the country.

Apparently, management at the Kansas City Star doesn't want to have the blood on their hands regarding the firing of one of two reporters.

According to a report from media-watchdog Jim Romenesko's blog, reporters Karen Dillon and Dawn Bormann have been told that one of them has to go, and that they have to make the decision. From the story:

“Dillon has seniority, so she has the option of taking it or not taking it,” says a KCConfidential.com source. “And if she does, Dawn gets laid off. Dawn’s a great person but I think Karen will vote in favor of herself because she’s got teenage kids at home.”

An interesting thing to note is that Dillon is apparently the person who originally broke the news of the public indecency arrest of Paul "Pee-Wee Herman" Rubens back in 1991, recognizing his name while scanning through the police blotter in Sarasota, Fla.

Here's to hoping that this "Hunger Games"-like exercise comes to an amicable end soon.