Blogs and blogging took centerstage at the recent blogging conference at Harvard. The proud editor from the Greensboro News & Record was asked if the NYTimes would be emulate what the News & Record is doing. The answer is interesting and on target. Edward Cone: Making inside of newsroom as big as outside

Media de-regulation news from the Bush administration which is backing off from its former avid pursuit means the cross-ownership rule might not be altered. It will be an interesting story involving who the President will appoint to replace Michael Powell.Chicagobusiness.com From the AP at 7:15 p.m. on 1/27, and on the NYTimes site:

The Republican-dominated FCC completed two years of review and voted 3-2 along party lines in 2003 to ease ownership restrictions. Last June the appeals court blocked the changes, writing that the FCC ``has not sufficiently justified its particular chosen numerical limits for local television ownership, local radio ownership, or cross-ownership of media within local markets.''

Useful Tools like this don't come along every day. This one is a dream come true for the citizens among us who mean to write their representatives, but don't get around to it. You can set up "monitors" on your Senators and track them with RSS. It has "stats at your fingertips" functions and is open source, so if you are a programmer and want a feature, you can just do it. What a great program. Hats off to Joshua Tauberer, the brains behind this useful tool. GovTrack.us: Track Federal Legislation

Copyright issues and internet content are as important to our democracy as voting issues. Read Lawrence Lessig's books and blogand check out Creative Commons. Here is a short update that makes the issues clear in a way that progressives and people interested in our political system will find accessible.Wired News: Eyes on the Prize Hits P2P

KurthLampe.com is my sister's business and their new organizing.training project aimed at helping creative types figure out how to work effectively in political campaigns, or even run for office, gets a mention in Craig, of Craig's list, blog.

Hey, take a look: A new group is asking artists and creative professionals to follow in old Ben Franklin's footsteps and seek and serve in public office. The Creative America Project is aiming to inspire and train people who make their living in creative fields to run for local office in 2006. They want to elevate creativity to a national value and priority. Ben is a hero of the organization's founder, Tom Tresser, who says Franklin was an effective community organizer, revolutionary, entrepreneur, author, politician, diplomat, satirist and philanthropist. He's worried that fundamentalist political groups have made too much progress in driving America's social and policy agendas and thinks those of us who labor in or love the creative arena should get organized and run for local office. Posted by craig at 01:30 PM

craigblog

Napster eyes movie downloads | CNET News.com that are priced at $2.99. But since not everyone wants to watch from their computer, it seems to me this will be further impetus for integrated home entertainment systems. My current setup is a DVD set up with a projector (under $1000) and a pulldown screen where sound goes through our stereo system. We can connect a TV antenna to the system and see broadcast stations on the big screen, too. Cable could be hooked in as well. Compare this to an HDTV, especially because with digital inputs our system will be able to hook into internet and get movie downloads if decide that Netflix isn't working for us. With that setup, we will be ready to get our TV the way we want it, when we want it, by searching internet using Google or Yahoo. The economic model isn't there, but the pesky disruptive technology clearly is.

Napster eyes movie downloads | CNET News.com that are priced at $2.99. But since not everyone wants to watch from their computer, it seems to me this will be further impetus for integrated home entertainment systems. My current setup is a DVD set up with a projector (under $1000) and a pulldown screen where sound goes through our stereo system. We can connect a TV antenna to the system and see broadcast stations on the big screen, too. Cable could be hooked in as well. Compare this to an HDTV, especially because with digital inputs our system will be able to hook into internet and get movie downloads if decide that Netflix isn't working for us. With that setup, we will be ready to get our TV the way we want it, when we want it, by searching internet using Google or Yahoo. The economic model isn't there, but the pesky disruptive technology clearly is.

Dying to blogmay not be an expression in Iran where bloggers are now jailed and tortured. Los Angeles Times: Iran Attempts to Pull Plug on Web Dissidents

Blogs and blogging conference uses various technologies (IRC, WIKI) to include participants who can't be there in person. This story eb logs come of age as source of news by Verne Kopytoff, Chronicle Staff Writer, stands on its own as a fair description of the blogosphere and journalism multilog as it stands right now. It made me research the conference a bit, too. Here is a blog from the conference with links to information about it. It was invitation only and I expect there to be information fallout from this event over the next few days as the "technoconnecti" talk and the legacy media begins to hear a buzz.Blogging, Journalism & Credibility » Conference IRC channels If you have heard me talk about journalist tech tools lately, you have seen me demonstrate "bloglines" as a tool for keeping track of RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds. It is an "aggregator" that is easy to use with the added benefit that once you start tracking some sites, you can create a web page that will show your take on the online world. The Blogging, Journalism & Credibility conference used bloglines for its aggregator. You can get linked to some of the blogs about blogging that are talking about the nexus of blogs and journalism. There is mobcasting about the conference, too. Here is a very a href="http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/PrintStory.pl?document_id=2002158836&zsection_id=2002119995&slug=btblogethics24&date=20050124">straightforward story about blogging ethics titled How bloggers handle ethics and disclosure varies greatly by Anick Jesdanun for the Associated Press I am going into the glueworld of the phone to contact some of my colleagues in the radio department to try and get hem to work with me to organize a workshop for our students on iPodding.

Podcasting an arts review? It works for me. I liked it better than the written version on his blog, plus it makes is easier to imagine the process he is talking about because it is an audio piece. I listen on my computer as I must sadly admit that I don't have an iPod of my own yet. When iPods and Cellphones meet Art Exhibits: Corante > EventLab > Journalism students, I really think you need to be thinking about iPodding as a new venue or format for your work. In the age of customization and niche audiences, here is a way to go "hyperlocal." Now is time to think deeply about establishing a voice--even in this literal sense--in the world of news, reporting, and commentary.

In the January 20th posting, there is a continuation of the discussion of pay and citizen journalist/reporter/bloggers. The issue of pay disparity in MSM legacy operations is certainly one that must be playing out as the backstory of where professional journalism is going. The question of respect, rather than pay, for citizen contributors is an interesting one as well. Smudged Ink I agree that the idea of giving coffee mugs and T-shirts out to ciitzen reporters for their contributions is patronizing unless the contributor is about 10 years old.

College drags its feet on supporting teaching and learning. I researched Movable Type, TypePad, and trackback ove a year ago. I pitched the idea to a college V.P. who will remain nameless at least for now. I teach "Online Publishing and Production" and do have a website for our product at http://in-the-loop.colum.edu but we don't have access to Movable and its easy publishing features. What really gets to me, is after my pitch, I was told the VP would look into it. He sure did. Now the college administrators can use Movable for their in-house newsletters, but teachers don't have access to it. If the college had just stayed Luddite and not gotten any blogging software, it wouldn't sting so badly. Having to look at Movable, without being able to harness its powerful features in the classroom hurts. If anyone who is an educator or journalist were to comment about how Movable Type with Trackback is a useful educational tool, perhaps I could use it in my quest to work with technology effectively at an Arts and Communication school that still (sigh) has no Technology V.P. or support for academic computing issues like this. CNET News.com Introduces TrackBack, Linking Blog Commentary to CNET News.com Stories

Micropayments and citizen journalists discussion on Poynter.org which talks about a comment I made.Poynter Online - E-Media Tidbits I think giving the citizen journos T-shirts might be patronizing. I am thinking about this further. I am inclined to think that micropayments and reputation rankings would be a better way to go.

News mix for a Monday. Includes a variety of stories that are popping up, or on the horizon. The law and bloggers and other website keepers is a simmering issue. A young Mac enthusiast published details of the new Mini Mac and is being sued by Apple for trade secret misappropriation. According to the NYTimes story,

The Think Secret case is the third intellectual-property lawsuit that Apple has filed recently. Apple also sued two men who allegedly distributed pre-released versions of its upcoming version of its Mac OS X software, as well as unnamed individuals for allegedly leaking details about a future and as yet-unannounced music product, code-named Asteroid. Read more (registration required.)

Student Seeks Legal Aid in Apple Case Media on the media was a big story over the weekend following on the heels of CBS News independent panel investigation. Todd Gitlin asks that if the media be pilloried, it be over whether they are doing good or bad journalism and notes that "...within their limited franchise, they honored the journalistic faith that more comprehensive reports are preferable to less comprehensive ones; skeptical scrutiny of sources to credulity; context to sound bites." Read Gitlin's story. Eric Boehlert from Salon notes in a CJR interview, takes MSM (mainstream media) to task for its pack mentality. Certain stories are covered without depth, but with mind-numbing repetition, while important and often pretty obvious questions don't get asked, and the stories that would result, don't get covered. He cites the connection between Bernard Kerik's ranting that a Kerry presidency would bring more terrorism during the run-up to the election and Kerik's subsequent, though spectacularly failed nomination as payback after the election.

"Truth is, in my nearly five years at Salon and a few hundred bylines, I've never once had to abandon a story I was working on because my editors and I thought that someone else had beaten us to it, or had explored the same angle, which is odd. The bad news is that's driven by an incredibly timid brand of journalism. The good news is that it provides Salon with all sorts of operating room."

The Year of Blog brings lots of attention on blogs, blogging, and bloggers, but here is an instantiation of the REAL story about blogs. They are a tool that facilitates communication. They will transform media operations because they break the "one to many" mold that pre-electronic media had to fit into. In this MSNBC story from its business section, Mark Tosczak details the overhaul of the News & Record of Greensboro, NC, noting

That breaks the traditional model where newspaper reporters and editors serve as gatekeepers, deciding what information actually makes news. In the virtually unlimited space on the Web, such constraints are no longer an issue. And with readers contributing content, the paper's Web content is no longer limited by the size of the staff.

The paper is going to use citizen journalist bloggers and blogs by its editors and reporters to try and transform itself and stay in business as it sees its newsprint version continue to lose readership. The hybrid model, where the electronic version and print version work together is one we will see more and more. It will be cheaper for news organizations to use citizen reports than to hire more reporters. I think there are two issues here that will make or break these hybrids. Can they gracefully relinquish their control on gatekeeping and framing the news in a collaborative way with their viewer/users (v/users) and can they maintain a level of quality and interest in citizen reporting? In following blogs for years, I have noted that the gossipy ones are interesting at first, but their interest palls in a way that traditional news with its flawed, but attempted objectivity does not. Poor CBS has gotten the bloggers het up again by making its independent panel's report unfriendy to the e-world

With the help of Seth Finkelstein, a programmer and fellow blogger (sethf.com/infothought/blog/), Mr. Miller found that the document's encryption settings had been changed and, as a result, the text could not be copied. Anyone who downloaded the panel's report from either the CBS News servers or those of the law firm would have to retype any passages they wished to include in, say, an e-mail message or a blog post.

But look to William Safire's column for a rundown on what ails journalism and how the remedies are in the works.

Bloggers may have to enter the investigative frey if msm (mainstream media) has been bought off. Are we surrounded by shills? Get those FOIA letters off and let's see some reporters help to heal the ethical cancers lurking in their midst.The New York Times > Arts > Frank Rich: All the President's Newsmen: (Frank Rich can really write.)

"Or is Mr. Williams merely the first one of his ilk to be exposed? Every time this administration puts out fiction through the news media - the 'Rambo' exploits of Jessica Lynch, the initial cover-up of Pat Tillman's death by friendly fire - it's assumed that a credulous and excessively deferential press was duped. But might there be more paid agents at loose in the media machine? In response to questions at the White House, Mr. McClellan has said that he is 'not aware' of any other such case and that he hasn't 'heard' whether the administration's senior staff knew of the Williams contract - nondenial denials with miles of wiggle room. Mr. Williams, meanwhile, has told both James Rainey of The Los Angeles Times and David Corn of The Nation that he has 'no doubt' that there are 'others' like him being paid for purveying administration propaganda and that 'this happens all the time.' So far he is refusing to name names - a vow of omertà all too reminiscent of that taken by the low-level operatives first apprehended in that 'third-rate burglary' during the Nixon administration."

Money & media can often mean one is talking politics. Here from the Financial Times is a story about money to infuse progressive politics and perhaps a new think-tank. t r u t h o u t - Soros Group Raises Stakes in Battle with U.S. Neo-Cons

Exploding TV is a thread in some media blogs. I was ignoring it, as I usually want to blow up my TV as John Prine sings in "Spanish Pipe Dream." Then I checked out Akimbo Systems and if I combine Akimbo with my projector, my DVD, and my video I will be able to video on my Big Screen without getting hooked up to broadcast or cable TV. Hmm, just the videos, without the filler and the time rigid schedules of television as it is today? Seems like this is a good idea. Now, if I was a reporter I might consider whether I could do those stories the assignment editor never has time for, or the producer deep-sixes, and find a market through something like Akimbo. Maybe not now as in today, but soon this idea may have a biz model and be one of the ways freelancers or "citizen journalists" can make money from their work. Jeff Jarvis' post about exploding video is a good place to start.

For the rest of us who use computers to communicate and work and don't want to have to struggle with the mysteries of Microsoft, comes "mini Mac." Oops, I meant "Mac mini" for under $500.Apple unveils $499 PC | CNET News.com Why bother to switch? In my opinion as a person who has used computers and such since before the days of the acoustic coupler, Macs are easier to use, upgrade and customize. They aren't as prone to viruses, either. And the software that comes bundled on them makes life a little more fun. iLife applications make moving into the photocentric world of the phonecam and social web photosharing era an easy click and drag, instead of a hellish nightmare of incompatibility.

Media ethics and the continuing Armstrong Williams-Dept. of Education payment issue. Here is a call to investigate whether federal funds have been misused. Send a note to your congressperson and ask that they support Louise.Congresswoman Louise M. Slaughter - REP. SLAUGHTER DEMANDS GAO INVESTIGATION INTO BUSH ADMINISTRATION PROPAGANDA CONTRACTS

I have applied to become a Media Blogger officially, though I think a content analysis would indicate I am a media blogger. I was attracted to this group because they banded together to help find mirror sites and ways to help serve the various tsunami videos shot mainly by amateurs (victims?) The cost of serving hundreds of terrabytes of data mounts up. It could end up being one of those "be careful what you wish for" moments if one's blog got its 15 minutes of fame but it ended up costing you $10,000 dollars. I am still trying to figure out why the costs mount up. Is it really that costly to serve lots of video, or is it that hosting service contracts are written so they can charge you so much? Media Bloggers Association * Join Media Bloggers Association

Media ethics issues to the fore. There is the black political commentator who was shilling for the No Child Left Behind Act and the Dept. of Education on the right. On the left, is the fallout from the CBS 60 Minutes presentation about Pres. Bush's national guard service. Heads are rolling. But the CBS story didn't cost you, the TaxPayer, any money. The administration's use of political hacks to push its advertising and P.R. agenda is paid for with your hard-earned tax money. Where are those fiscal conservatives when they could save us some money? Kansas City paper on the Dept. of Education and other government agencies paying for ads that use real or fake reporters as shills.

Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, said the administration's efforts make her “extremely nervous and uneasy.” “At first I thought it was an aberration, but now — certainly with the Education Department — it appears to be a pattern, and I'm definitely wondering who else is on their payroll,” she said.

and its fallout.

"The combination of a new 60 Minutes Wednesday management team, great deference given to a highly respected producer and the network’s news anchor, competitive pressures, and a zealous belief in the truth of the segment seem to have led many to disregard some fundamental journalistic principles," the report said.

Blogs, blogging and the tsunami are news. I taught on Tuesday and Thursday of this week and basically went over what Steve talks about in this article. My students looked at Sumankumar's yak pad entries from December 23rd and 24th, where he was talking about what he ate the night before and showing funny pictures of Santa. The abrupt shift in his 12/26/05 entry, where he turned his blog into one of the first eyewitness aggregators and used it to help the rescue efforts get organized fascinated my students. I trust it got them thinking, too, about their future work as journalists. What Steve Outing is talking about are the simple ways that mainstream media (legacy media?) might treat blogging information as news, and package it up for viewer/users. The viewer/user, rather than the passive "reader" or "audience" underlies the problem Steve details where the citizen blogger posts newsworthy video which becomes the "meme" of the day and the number of hits close down their hosting service, or at least their site. Mainstream media, with its resources, could mirror these sites to help with the rush of v/users that is so characteristic of Internet news stories. Read on, his ideas are all very good. I just wish he had written this on Monday so I could have used it in class, instead of having to grab all my own links for class. Poynter Online - Taking Tsunami Coverage into Their Own Hands

Bad faith and lack of honesty in government appears to be a continuing problem in the Bush Administration. From packaging messages as fake news, to paying commentator Armstong Williams to talk up "No Child Left Behind" Act and to try and get other black journalists to talk about NCLB, this administration thinks that ethics are for someone else. And "boo" to any commentator, black or white or of any kind, who will take money for promoting ideas, even if they do like the ideas. If this guy were a d.j., this would be payola...

Williams' contract was part of a $1 million deal with Ketchum that produced "video news releases" designed to look like news reports. The Bush administration used similar releases last year to promote its Medicare prescription drug plan, prompting a scolding from the Government Accountability Office, which called them an illegal use of taxpayers' dollars. Williams, 45, a former aide to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, is one of the top black conservative voices in the nation. He hosts The Right Side on TV and radio, and writes op-ed pieces for newspapers, including USA TODAY, while running a public relations firm, Graham Williams Group.

Drug Control Office Faulted For Issuing Fake News Tapes (washingtonpost.com) Education Dept. paid black pundit $240,000 to promote No Child Left Behind Act

iPoddingor related to iPodding, radio business will be shaken by tech that records Satellite radio. Wired News: Sat Radio Recording Moves Ahead

Election 2004 the continuing saga. If you checked out Unprecedented, the documentary featuring journalist Greg Palast, you know the "if only one senator had stood up with the members of the House of Representatives" to question the voting argument. He documented how the election was stolen, and showed how no senator would stand with the Congressional Black Caucus members to call for a fair and impartial look at the voting procedure. Barbara Boxer (D-California) is standing with Rep. Conyers of Michigan and others today and challenging the Ohio vote totals. Will it overturn the results? Probably not. Will it help our democracy get back on track? Let's hope. Yahoo! News - Democrats to Force Debate on Ohio Results

The future of news where the facts come to reflect the animated fiction and more. If you checked out EPIC 2014" you saw an amusing sci-fi short that where "Googlezon" vs. "Microfriendster" battled for the eyeballs of the news reading public, and the NY Times became an elegant paper-only product for old people and collectors. This piece from Poynter begins to sound like that, with Google and Yahoo and Microsoft going for customized news and even a single device to bring you your news and feeds (could that be iPod, especially with iPodder to turn any written stuff into audio for those long commutes, and to get around the small screen issue?) The career picture I paint for my students puts them out in the world with the skills to be an independent news producer who can work within a legacy media company, but is just as comfortable selling news packages via iPodder, doing their best work in interactive narrative packages, and being able to write for any media. I do think they need to specialize in a storytelling form, like long form, or broadcast style, or text-based with good links, but they need the production skills to get the news out to a Googlebot or Yahoo so they can make a living. Who will pay? Think "micropayments" which have finally matured since the 1990s, and see a world where each news story brings its creator, pro or amateur, a check based on reputation rankings or other quality index,for example. You can check out Peppercoinfor an example of a micropayment mechanism that's got lots of buzz, and the article below for the business underpinnings regarding the rise of news aggregators vs. legacy newspaper companies. Poynter Online - Forecast 2005: For Newspapers, Competition Too Big to Ignore

Extensions of our senses is what McLuhan called any and all media. The recent earthquake and tsumani has disrupted life in several nations, wrecked havoc on many of our fellow humans, and even changed the length of a day. The impact of ubiquitous digital technology that's affordable to many average people is rushing over the "legacy" media businesses like a tidal wave in the wake of the disaster. Videos by vacationers and blogs run by 20 year olds are getting big money from the mainstream media networks and big hits from viewers. Andreas Wacker blogger at, blogsnow was commenting on the Jon Stewart "Crossfire" video clip when he said

When the Internet wants to see something, it sees it.

And the Internet wants to see what the tsunami did. It seems a better media for viewing the videos than television because the viewer/user controls how they see the clips, and that inevitable feeling of "here it comes again" that accompanies television's big disaster moments (the Twin Towers falling, the big waves hitting) doesn't occur. In moments of sadness and despair, maybe we are served better by watching these things in ways that let us feel as individuals, not participate with a group, as if we were watching our favorite team win. WSJ.com - Video Blogs Break Out With Tsunami Scenes: "commentary and views on current events."

So it goes. Goodbye to Jerry Orbach

Media reform and radio and shameless self-promotion brings you my story on the cover of January's ConsciousChoice magazine.Conscious Choice: Who Pulled the Plug?