Blogs, blogging. This reporter is angry. He does have a point that blogging is not the same as journalism, however, once folks like him relax and realize that for each blog that is vicious or sleezy, there are readers who will "triangulate" and check the info out, or who will read the bad blogs as sort of comic relief, he will feel better. If we think our readers are stupid and gullible, blogs are big trouble. If we think our readers might be thinkers, the threat isn't nearly so great. Nick Coleman: Blogged down in Web fantasy: "So, how is it that nakedly partisan bloggers who make things up left and right are gaining street cred while the mainstream media, which spend a lot of time criticizing themselves, are under attack?"

Polling hijinks. Is Gallup drawing a bad sample these days to enhance GOP poll numbers? I am going to try and chase this one down with some stat folks.The Left Coaster: Why You Should Ignore The Gallup Poll This Morning - And Maybe Other Gallup Polls As Well

Copyright. A new book analyzes the economic and policy implications of the copyright system today, and argues that it is stopping the very process it is supposed to protect. Jaffe, A.B. and Lerner, J.: Innovation and Its Discontents: How Our Broken Patent System is Endangering Innovation and Progress, and What to Do About It.

RFID begins its move from exotic to mainstream. NYTimes registration required.The New York Times > Technology > What's in the Box? Radio Tags Know That, and More: ".B.M.'s goal, analysts said, is to persuade businesses to view radio tagging - one of the hottest growth areas for mobile sensor technology - as just one element of a new wave of information technology outside of data centers that must be integrated to be exploited. Radio tags can be read in groups instead of one by one, and they hold far more data than bar codes. In addition to indicating what product a carton holds, they can specify when and where that particular item was made and its intended destination."

Gatekeepers, media bias. This story about Project Censored touches on a variety of important questions for and about journalism today. Pressing issues / Sonoma State's Project Censored takes the media to task for missing big stories: "'We have a big problem today in that half the people don't vote,' he said. 'We need stories about the issues that face us, whether it's the spiraling decline of wages in the country, or the 40 million people without health insurance, or the accelerated gap between rich and poor in the Bush administration. This is new information. It's just assumed that growth is good for everybody, and it's not. There's an assumption that private enterprise is the most effective means of organizing society, and it's rarely challenged in American society.'"

Objectivity Will this story get same attention and care from big media and bloggers that the Rather story did. This one goes to corruption of our legislative system, not just whether one man was scared to serve in VietNam and took the rich boy deferment route.t r u t h o u t - 32 Felony Indictments Returned in Tom DeLay Case

Blogs & blogging Here is a biased article. Now because it takes Rather to task, not because it criticizes "60 Minutes." Yet this article shows that the writer was either biased or just not doing a good job of reporting.

The arrogance and attitude of Rather is certainly an issue. However this article then goes on the list several Republican blogs that investigated this story. That's okay, but in the blogosphere, there are many more blogs with different perspectives that have been existence longer and are kept by real bloggers. The blogs cited in this article are all new and are examples of the use of "blog" the tool, but not "blog" the independent commentary on issues. A political hack or operative has latched on to the blog software to do "dirty tricks" kind of writing.

I think that either mainstream reporters don't "get" blogging at all, or that they are so fearful of citizen reporters and commentators who use "blog, the tool" that they are willing to misrepresent what is going on in blogosphere, out of fear of the very transparency that Overholser talks about.

The facts of the memo about Bush are true. The memo play was awkward and a mistake and maybe its time for Rather to retire. The lack of analysis of those Republican "blogs come lately" which lumps them with the commentary of real bloggers, conservative or liberal, Republican or Democrat, cheapens this story and misrepresents what is really going on.

Here is the original article. Analysis: Guard memo blunder raises questions about future of '60 Minutes,' Dan Rather and journalism: "'We've got to find some new touchstones, and I think a good new touchstone will be transparency,' she said. '[CBS] did not tell us who the source was. That really undermined them. They need to worry about source issues.'"

Blogs & blogging. Here is an interesting kind of techie perspective on journalism and blogs coming out of South Africa. It asks some questions that big media needs to confront. If you want to be a journalist working in the next few years, you need to consider these ideas as well. Mail and Guardian Online: Open source software challenges big media: "Their tone is one of fear mixed with arrogance, and it's a response to a problem all traditional media face: if the public is prepared to consider the views of individuals as journalism, how do we keep up a competitive advantage? If anyone can be a reporter, what value-added services can an online newspaper offer to avoid being left in the dust? "

Voting Here is more about the current registration drives going on. Boston.com / News / Politics / Young people registering by the tens of thousands in battleground states

Objectivity & Opinion Fragmentation of audience and the proliferation of journalism that shows its point of view is in the news these days. Here is a smattering of what people are saying.

USATODAY.com - As media audience fragments, trust not objectivity is what matters

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Blogs and blogging. This story starts out being about "dirty tricks." Here is a man who exploits his children and gets gullible newsies to cover him in campaign after campaign, as he fakes incidents where democratic crowds tear up his signs and be mean to him. The trouble is, Parlock, the guy in question, stages these events to discredit Democrats. What is really of interest to me is William Rivers Pitt's final note about how the mainstream press has missed the story that Parlock is a provocateur. It was bloggers who did the legwork to find the facts and not just take the incidents at face value. That's a shift from the usual assumption that bloggers analyze what reporters track down.t r u t h o u t - William Rivers Pitt | Scamming the Media, Parlock Style

Pay per channel cable is an idea that I first heard about in the 1970s before Chicago was wired. Here the author argues that it will hurt diversity and suggests that in a pay per channel world the Civil Rights movement would have faltered.

I think that this is written from the perspective of a middle man who wants to make money in between the content producer and the broadcast "pipe" itself. I argue that the broadcast media needs to be recast as a "common carrier" like the phone lines or highways and the trucking system. Disentangling the pipe from what it carries permits content producers of all points of view to get access. I'll be writing more about this in the future. A la carte cable could be death knell for TV diversity

WiFi When too much of a good thing goes bad. The Shorthorn Online | News | Wireless problems possible: "Students using their own signal points were interfering with the university’s wireless service, which is a free service offered to students and staff, he said. "

Reporting. This is a discussion of the role media play in how terrorists act unfold. The discussion of when what label -- figher, rebel, terrorist-- reporters use to describe perpetrators is interesting. The article reflects a threat to reporting as governments try and deal with media saavy terrorists by restricting the coverage of events. The role of commercials in coverage of terrorist events is startling, but practical.Islamic Fundamentalists Adept at Using Media, Analysts Say -- 09/15/2004: "While the government could never impose guidelines on journalists there are two areas where journalists could improve, Kraft said - in providing context for the stories they report and in their use of language. 'More context...would go a long way to provide more of a balance,' Kraft said. "

The "dot.net" crowd is the sought after voter this year. What will youth do? This is a good look at efforts to register young voters over the past 10 years, and how they voted. The New York Times > Washington > Campaign 2004 > Vote Drives Gain Avid Attention of Youth in '04

Who won news and documentary emmys?Newsday.com: PBS wins 8 awards at news and documentary Emmys, NBC's Brokaw honored

Search engine warsloom with this announcement by AmazonThe New York Times > Technology > Amazon to Take Searches on Web to a New Depth

Pop culture. I always did think Joe was kind of a blowhard. For all his swaggering and his very cool outfits, what did he ever really do that was heroic? Barbie was a doctor and ran for President, but now we know Joe is a fake.Salon.com | G.I. Joe is a fake

Shift from viewers to "vusers" (viewer-users) continues. It is the content, but it is also the experience. I have been trying to get newsies to understand experience design is critical to the future of news for some time. Recent surveys and shifts in how people use media have now made this clear to a wider range of people than before. Poynter Online - Convergence Chaser

Research that matters. Though there are only 46 subjects in their study, the technology they used to check out how the subjects read is comprehensive. This study is very important to online writers, publishers, and any content providers. Eyetrack III - Homepage

What is news? Is it simply quoting whoever is talking? What is the role of facts and analysis?Los Angeles Times: Campaign coverage needs to read between the lines

Copyright and new technologies.Wired News: Homemade Sat Radio Software Bump

Camphone news Camphone film festival is announced. Get those 1 to 5 min. oevres in shape and submit them now.Cellular Cinema Festival, Cell Phone Festival, Movies for the small screen, digital movies, indie films, joe miale, ZoieFest 2004! Celebrating Award Winning Films from Around the World!

Blogs and blogging. Here is an interesting story about Technocrati's David Sifry may have put the blogosphere on the path to becoming "one huge peer-reviewed journal" as Matt Stoller describes it. Using bloggers identified by reputation and ranking, a Politics Attention Index has come into being. Journos who couldn't see how the trust issue could be dealt with in blogs can check this out. Wired News: Site Tracks Political Zeitgeist

Philly goes wireless

FORGET the stadiums. Ignore the Neighborhood Transformation Initiative. John Street's administration yesterday announced what could be the most important legacy the mayor will leave Philadelphia. The administration hopes to turn all 135 miles of Philadelphia into a giant wireless hotspot and bring the Internet to the masses. Street has named a 17-member "Wireless" committee to explore the feasibility of the plan, which would involve installing thousands of transmitters across the city. Computers equipped with wireless cards could then log into the Internet. If this becomes a reality, Philadelphia will be the first major city in the United States to provide wireless Internet access to all its residents. About 1,200 people now regularly use the free wireless access the city provides at LOVE Park.

While this is a noteworthy story in and of itself, for journos, another story is what publications are picking up this story. In the Google search I did, the story appears in the Boston Globe, Forbes, and then notice its global reach: U.K., Singapore, Phillipines, etc. Google Search: Look at where this story is being picked up.

Blogs and blogging. We are back to the clued and clueless of the Cluetrain Manifesto. Some employers just don't get it. I say, if you are on Friendster, get off, or at least write them a nasty note.Friendster fires developer for blog - News - ZDNet