Here is an infographic showing anti-war activism in a map/graph form.Antiwar Effort Emphasizes Civility Over Confrontation

Here is a blog from the CREC. It has the latest intormation about Richard Perle's resignation. Perle has been engaged in the equivalent of insider trading between defense contractors and our government's war-related contracts. To me, he represents the American Arrogance that I equate with "The Ugly America" Civic Engagement and Responsibility Committee - Columbia College Chicago

Changing the topic from blogging, here is another of the interesting pieces on how gambling (futures markets) is in the forefront of economic theory and predictions. And as this article asks, "why is one betting and the other trading?" Salon.com Technology | The mother of all gambles

CNN shuts down a personal blog of one of its reporters. Do they "get" blogging?Kevin Sites Blog

Here is a summary about Salam Pax and the blog from Baghdad. This presents a whole set of interesting questions for Journalism Educators, as well as opportunities and perhaps even a glimpse at the future of some kinds of news...

Hunting the Baghdad Blogger Many people, including some of our readers, question whether Salam Pax, a.k.a. the Baghdad blogger, is real. (See last week's NSD for more.) Might he just be someone practicing an elaborate hoax? Tech journalist Paul Boutin thinks Pax is the real McCoy after ferreting out that he probably uses Uruklink, Iraq's state ISP, to transmit his blogs to the Blogspot server in California. Diane, who writes the Letter from Gotham blog, has maintained more personal communications with Pax and also thinks he's genuine. Her conclusion is based on personal but pretty convincing evidence regarding, in part, Jewish history in pre-1948 Iraq. The "Where is Raed?" blog seems authentic, and its commentary rings true. The tone is of someone who is sad war has come to his city and who regrets its impact on normal life. For a deeper look at Pax, check out this superb article in the Philadelphia Inquirer. Finally, Wired has a story about how the immense popularity of the blog was causing bandwidth problems for the hosting ISP. NSD 9.11: http://www.netsurf.com/nsd/sub/v09/nsd.09.11.html#BS1 Boutin: http://paulboutin.weblogger.com/2003/03/20 Letter from Gotham: http://gotham.realwomenonline.com/archives/002105.html Inquirer: http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/magazine/daily/5490233.htm Wired: http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,58206,00.html Raed: http://dear_raed.blogspot.com/

Try as I might, I cannot do the comprehensive job that the Media Center of the API does in aggregating web coverage of the war. Here is a valuable central clearinghouse.CyberJournalist.net: Iraq Conflict Coverage Weblog -- Great Work Gallery

What a story. Reuters | Latest Financial News / Full News Coverage

An industrial disaster from the pre-television days that we don't remember, nor have we learned from it....Reuters | Latest Financial News / Full News Coverage

The New York Times: International Special

Where's media? Find them here.Poynter Online - Media Map of Iraq

Geneva Overholser spells out what we are not seeing about this war and about the real relationship between American oil companies and Saddam Hussein. She goes on to say: "Why is so little written about this? And why is so little said about the enormous growth in America' s reliance on foreign oil? W hen I was a cub reporter in Colorado Springs in the early 1970s, all the talk was about the danger of such reliance. At that point, 30-something percent of our oil came from overseas. Now it's 60 percent. The Wall Street had a good piece -- "Why the U.S. Is Still Hooked On Oil Imports" -- on March 18 (subscribers only) that reminds us just how much we are at the mercy of oil-producing countries today. Shouldn't this question have been more a part of the pre-war conversation? Wouldn't most Americans be happy to drive a couple of miles less a week? Turn the thermostat down a few degrees? Shouldn't there have been more talk about a failure of political leadership in this regard? Aren't we operating in a pretty narrow rut of media coverage here? "

If it works for anti-ward organizers, won't SMS be a tool for many kinds of communicators? Maybe even news reporters?

Is this what they mean by Information wants to be Free?

To: announce online Date: Wed, 26 Mar 2003 15:43:34 -0600 Subject: [Announce] 1104 Internet Access 1104 S. Wabash will loose internet access on the morning of April 1st (Tuesday) to fix some problems we have been experiencing. Internet access should be restored before noon. We are sorry for any inconvenience. IT

This article may require registration with the NY Times. It details a disturbing development in blogging. Companies have contacted young bloggers and made deals with them for product endorsements and for links on their sites. Some of the links are not obviously "paid for placement" so this is a big problem. This will raise issues for newsbloggers, too, about objectivity and the trustworthyness of blogs. The Web Diarist as Pitchman

Laurie Goering, unembedded in a war zone Unembedded Reporters Face Grave Dangers

Parents of a certain age and folks in the 17-24 demographics will remember "Optimus Prime," one of the Transformers. In a case of life mimics art (if we can call animated cartoons art) a soldier legally changes his name... National guardman changed his name to a toy | wkyc.com

A soldier blog... LT SMASH

The continuing story of the blog from Baghdad, and the evolving world of blog-mediated communications. Wired News: Iraq Blog: Hubbub Over a Headlock and here are weblogs entering the mainstream of news from Poynter. org

The third item talks about how to evaluate online news. It is written for the public, but it is basic information for Journalists. Poynter Online - Wednesday Edition: The E-mail War

Boycott "Brand America" is an interesting way to try and fight the war.... Boycott Brand America War Machine

Dig this--sacrificing the purchase of chocolates for SMS and other messaging. Better get them in the e-reading habit with your publication, they just aren't doing print.... Europemedia.net: News - Youth spending on mobiles up to 13.5% of disposable income

Online, broadband, payment models and the relationship to television news.... War Is Test of High-Speed Web

Online video and news appetites in wartime: 24BROAD.chart.jpg 237x390 pixels

Journalists are going mobile. They need to have their basic skills, but it helps to have learned to think about reporting from a knapsack before you get on the job. How does having a phone or computer and being able to file a story on the spot change the way a reporter plans, writes, and thinks about their journalistic enterprise? Improved Tools Turn Journalists Into a Quick Strike Force

Here are some of the pros and cons of blogging. Basically focusing on writing with and without an editor. Like it or not, though, blogs are going to be out there. Let's hope there is a way to introduce the concept to young journalists in a way that builds in some of the traditional values of journalism. I'd hope they would learn from the news world than from somebody like Matt Drudge , but if educators ignore blogs, that may be the result. Think about Spider Jerusalem in Transmetroplitan .....and what that suggests for our students to do and NOT to do. Market gyrations / MEDIA: Web logs offer stream of consciousness from the front

Guess I was on the mark about the central role of blogs in news and reporting. OJR article: War a Boon for News Sites, Blogs

What is the future of Futures as a decision tool? Have you read The Tipping Point and Smart Mobs ? Both of them talk about how group actions take place, various ways of deciding things, and such. This article discusses futures as a decision-making tool that works -- provided you have an organization where the best idea wins.... Decisions, Decisions Here is a shorter thing, just about the trading on Saddam's future that shows how this "meme" of futures is rippling through the Net. Wired News: Traders Bet on Saddam's Ouster

An interesting unanticipated effect of the war on Iraq is that it is changing viewer expectations in regard to news and what they want from online news. After watching the multimedia coverage of the war, no one will want to go back to the shovelware, text on a page kind of reporting. As Steve Outing says, "what was unusual is now the usual." Poynter Online - E-Media Tidbits

Keep in touch 24/7 with this site: Top Iraq News From 1stHeadlines

A hijacking hardly makes a blip on US news radar.... CBC News: Hijacked Cuban airliner lands under escort in Florida

More follow-up regarding how viewer/users are working the Internet to track the War against Iraq. Reuters | Latest Financial News / Full News Coverage

Here is why I make sure my Introduction to Mass Media students understand that de-regulation in media ownership is not just a matter of money or business efficiency. As we lose our access to information from a variety of sources, news transforms to newspeak and the free press becomes a propaganda machine. Maybe that "access to the White House" so prized by many of our current television reporters isn't so much a way to get the news as a way to promulgate its manufacture by Chompsky's "New Mandarins." Sending 'Liberal Media' Truism to the Fact-Checker In an impressively researched and documented book, "What Liberal Media? The Truth About Bias and the News," he provocatively challenges this conservative wisdom as a mirage. He asserts that what Americans should really fear is the far better organized, more powerful and effective propaganda machine of the right that postulates the presumption of liberal bias through research groups, religious organizations, ideological news organizations and conservative personalities that "skews the entire discourse toward the right." "Unbeknownst to millions of Americans who continue to believe that the media are genuinely liberal ? or that conservatives and liberals are engaged in a fair fight of relative equality," Mr. Alterman writes, "liberals are fighting a near-hopeless battle in which they are enormously outmatched." Article from NYTimes may require you to register to read it.

Wireless, or Wi-fi is starting to look the killer app to bring tech stuff out of the dumps. The willingness of manufacturers to make the connection process transparent to the user is key. Here is Texas Instruments offering:

WANDA is the industry's first concept design to integrate wireless LAN, Bluetooth(TM) and GSM/GPRS technologies to enable simultaneous phone calls, web browsing, mobile commerce, Bluetooth-enabled capabilities, such as printing and headset listening, and integrated DSP-accelerated multimedia applications.

Want to read more?

This helpful reminder which neither encourages nor discourages participation caught my eye. Leave those tie shoes at home...

To: announce online Date: Mon, 17 Mar 2003 16:41:50 -0600 Subject: [Announce] (no subject) To: The College Community From: Martha Meegan Director of Campus Safety Date: March 17th, 2003 Re: Demonstrations Just a reminder, demonstrations should be conducted in an orderly and peaceful fashion in order to ensure the safety of all of our community members. Below are some suggestions on how to prepare and conduct oneself during a demonstration. 1. Be aware of your surroundings at all times. Although you may be engaged in a peaceful demonstration, others around you may not be and could possibly be a threat to your personal safety. 2. If you are participating in a march, be prepared to dress accordingly. Choose shoes that are comfortable and do not require lacing. 3. Limit the items and money you are carrying. Large groups of people present a perfect time for theft to occur. Carry your driver's license or state I.D., cell phone and bottled water. Leave wallets, handbags or book bags with credit cards, ATM cards or other personal information at home. 4. Take care in the construction and handling of signs or posters. Do not mount signs on wooden sticks to avoid harm to others.

A cautionary item in the age of all information, all the time. The paranoia of the left

Here is a handy tool for any J educator. It shows the front pages of 205 US newspapers and 29 foreign newspapers. Here is the perfect beginning of a current events assignment as we stand on the brink of war. What a great way to compare P.O.V. and the degree to which a paper editorializes with its headlines. It sets you up to look at issues of national vs. international news, bias, media ethics (what papers are part of the Bechtel conglomerate?) I need to go and write an assignment for my class now, this inspired me so much. I will try and repost this link because it will remain a very valuable on to print j folks and to others. Today's Front Pages

Wired follows up on the story I posted over the weekend about how Americans are flocking to foreign news sites. This provides some thoughtful background to the other article which was more a count or data report on how many viewers were going to BBC and Guardian. Wired News: Media Watchdogs Caught Napping

Another blog that focuses on media matters: Pentagon to Press: Shut Up or Else

Two studies of the media that are in the news: The Wayward Media

Japan Media Review -- A New Set of Social Rules for a Newly Wireless Society Related site: Keitai log with student posts

Barbara K. Iverson's current buzz blog tracks news about news. Tracking new technologies, trends, tools, and how v/users (readers) are changing with new options available in terms of how they find, read, and interact with the news. Check it out. current buzz : all the buzz that's fit to browse:

The tool that will eclipse Google some day. Feedster :: RSS Search Engine

New at Columbia College. A discussion board for the Civic Responsibility and Engagement Committee, featuring interesting info.

The public can now get the news it wants--and it isn't news from USA journalism sources. The eyeballs are going to BBC and Guardian for international news, especially news of Iraq. Is the reading public smarter than USA media conglomerates think? Those who vote with their clicks may be able to make a dent in outmoded assumptions about "what the public wants." US public turns to Europe for news

Well, just can't stop posting today, but as an early believer in the long-term viability of blogs, and one who has taught blogging as a journalistic tool, I was expecting this.... Wired News: Reporter Takes His Weblog to War

Here is a reporter's blog with pix included. Great suggestions and discussion of not having a camera/what phone cam to get. Our students will be working with this technology, I hope we are not oblivious to it. Poynter Online - The Design Desk

Test Pattern From Columbia College regarding its "LMS" and student registration software. I have tried to tell them for years about beta testing before rolling a product out. Some folks have to experience things in order to learn. Hope this moves our instutional knowledge quotient up a bit. Its going to cost us credibility in terms of trying to portray ourselves as a hotbed of communications and artistic excellence....oh well. The following is from an email to faculty on the verge of the registration time:

We seem to be experiencing some technical difficulties Faculty have reported some problems using the OASIS portal for Advising - some of the drop-down menus are not functioning properly and the Name Search does not seem to work right. To correct these problems and lower frustration levels, we are recommending that Faculty immediately begin using the Web Application for Advising instead of the Portal. To access the Web Application type in the following URL: http://cccjbar.colum.edu:9040 Your inital screens will look different from the interface you are used to, but all of the tools will be there and they will function as you have been instructed (and these actually work - what a concept!) Using the Web Application, you will also have access to the Course Catalog and the Degree Audit - so in a way, it's better than what you were using before (how's that for spin control?) There is a revised tutorial available for you at: http://cit.colum.edu/oasisinfo/revised.pdf As you are advising students, please don't forget to change the term to FA 2003 so that the clearance goes in for the correct term. Also, when you are doing a course authorization make sure the catalog on the right side of the screen is UG03 or GR03 for the catalog. Please contact the OASIS Help Desk at 344-7001 if you have any problems.

Well, I have talking about Wi-fi for some time, and using it where I can with students. We are going to do some "warchalking" around the campus when it warms up a bit. I see the advantage of the picture phones, too, and now low and behold, pros are beginning to see how they can be used. I was wondering when this "meme" kind of thing would spread beyond the kid tech crowd. Poynter Online - E-Media Tidbits

Using "Inspiration", templates for MSWord, and other software which McLuhanites would refer to as "extensions of the senses," in this case the memory and whatever the mysterious creative process of brainstorming entails, Hollywood scriptwriters are abandoning the yellow legal pad. The writer Roger S. H. Schulman (Shrek)doesn't collaborate but notes that if he did, he would use e-collaboration software. This isn't technology "intertwined" with a field, it is technology transforming a traditional work process. As such, it is one of the key shifts that educators need to make. "Ontogeny does not recapitulate phylogeny" in education. Students don't need to pass through the stages of learning that their teachers did. They want to jump into learning, and as they work, it is the teacher's job to help them perfect their skills to hone their work into a better and better product. Learning is an iterative, fluid thing now. It isn't something stored up to be recited, it is doing. Learning is the labor of our century. It is difficult because it means that educators need to start working in new ways and that can be harder than simply keeping up with the latest new idea. It means being able to track, analyze, and report back on the latest idea in a connected, dynamic, digital way. The idea that career or professional skills are learned in a process whereby "Ontogeny Recapitulates Phylogeny" and each learner develops by passing through abbreviated stages that replicate the developmental stages of how the teacher learned is not true for today's learners. They need to given problems, and to learn skills as they move to solve the larger problem. To try and breakdown learning to present skills to them in a stepwise fashion, as if information isn't out there, all the time, available 24/7 at their fingertips seems slow and hackneyed to them. Dialogue Box, Hollywood Version

Online news, it's not just for kids anymore. Executives change their news consuming habits.... from one of the Poynter Blogs, posted by Vin Crosbie 3:31:47 PM More Executives Go Online Than Read Newspapers Before Work As Rusty Coats, director of new media at MORI Research, has been telling periodical publishers, "It's clear that daytime is emerging as primetime online." So, publishers have begun researching what business people do online and when. The Internet Advertising Report today notes that Forbes magazine, working with GartnerG2 and Survey.com, has surveyed the online usage of 11,000 executives and senior managers. Nearly half (46%) go online before leaving for work, more than read a newspaper before work (38%). Among top management (CEOs, CIOs, CFOs, etc.), the difference was even greater (53% vs. 41%). "Even I was surprised that as high a percentage of C-level executives were going to the Web before the local paper," said Jim Spanfeller, chief executive of Forbes.com. "It's pretty hard to ignore the Web." The survey reports that the average workday for the high-level executive begins with e-mail, as 82% check their in-boxes before getting down to work. Research was their most important use of the Web.

News habits online, and how advertising dollars are going to follow the eyeballs... Welcome to the Digital Edge

Do you use IM? Looks like it is catching on faster than e-mail, even in the workplace. Clique of Instant Messagers Expands Into the Workplace

Poynter Online - E-Media Tidbits Here is a new link I am showing off.

GPL for content (as opposed to software) producers--very interesting idea. Licenses Explained | Creative Commons

Another attack on our rights as Americans. What good is being "safe" if we are in a virtual prison? Censoring the Internet

In recognition of all the women who paved the way for women today to achieve what they do, I post these sites so that you can track Women in Broadcasting, Journalism, and in history in general. Journalism and Broadcasting Women Pioneering the Future Women in Communications

This is a strategy to promote social action. I am not endorsing this strategy, however, I think nascent and practicing journalists need to see what this does, and to contemplate the effect if many people visit this site at a given time....Click the site, and see what happens at Dows website. Maybe you will read about this in the media at a later date.

I would expect a rock station I listen to to have good news analysis, but who am I but a consumer? Wired News: Media Rules Unsexy But Important

A career service diplomat stands up for his (and our American) principles but has to resign from the Foreign Service to be of service... The Smirking Chimp

Here is some short-sighted legislation that is going to make our CAR PARTS more expensive. Who would have thought of this? Not lawmakers eager to please the large media companies.... Wired News: Lexmark: New Fuel for DMCA Foes

Why online music matters to Journalism and News Steve Outing connects up the dots regarding revenue models and the mistakes the music industry is making in bumbling how it distributes and markets its digital content.

Poynter Online - Convergence Chaser Languages, as well as technologies converging.

When journalism students get a double message. Could we face a gap between practice and theory if we go to war and some of our students are drafted? It's your chance to be a 'hero' journalist - then again, maybe not | csmonitor.com

Chicago Tribune | Will TV's filter shape a war? So, do journalists and journalism professors simply acquiese to this and "adjust?" Better drop the reporting classes and stick in some fiction-writing in its place. Can students who want to be journalists have an impact on a system and media that is so ill-suited to conveying the reality of our lives? E-mail me if you want to talk about this.

"Whatever happens in Iraq, then, after the initial crush of live coverage, we won't be watching war per se but the ready-for-prime-time stories culled from it. There will be heroes and villains, loss and mourning, symbolic events and stirring pictures. Yet as those stories unfold, they won't exactly be "reality" in the unvarnished sense, but something swallowed by TV, chewed up and regurgitated back as entertainment.

E-Music Sites Settle on Prices. It's a Start. Only a couple years late, the recording industry is starting to "get it" in terms of what its core business is. It is not little silcon disks.... "We moved to the notion that we are a content company and our content will have the greatest value for us and our artists if it's ubiquitously available and we enable the maximum number of business models to thrive," said John Rose, an executive vice president of EMI.

Keeping an Eye on Things, by Cellphone While big brother watches you, can you be watching him?

Turn Off That Cellphone. It's Meeting Time. I have to say that I have wondered this myself about cellphones and always being "on call."

"I don't know how you can get any work done if you're always on call," said Mr. Rotherham, who carries a cellphone only when he travels. "At what point are you so connected that you become disconnected?"