See me at Online News Association in NYC

Check the conference blog for updates. I will be posting photos on flickr with the tag "ona05"

Next wave will be launched at USA in 2006

Cyworld making money in Asia. Next wave

What fans are saying

Off topic but I am wearing happy black today. Sox Win. If only Uncle Wally (who would not be 105 yrs. old could have seen them win one more time... Chicago Tribune news : White Sox

That Google, just wants to give us what we never knew we wanted.

Google adds TV interviews to video service | CNET News.com

Senator Calls for Inquiry Into Journalists' Access - New York Times

Oh what a hornets' nest dear Judy has stirred up. Senator Calls for Inquiry Into Journalists' Access - New York Times

Fitzgerald 'too clean' for GOP criticism to stick

Good column by Lynn Sweet about Fitzgerald and the politics of federal justice.Fitzgerald 'too clean' for GOP criticism to stick

Can 'Citizen Journalists' Really Produce Readable Content?

In 1945 when the Hutchins Report came out, one of its recommendation was to move toward a professionalization of journalism. Too many reporters were just people from any walk of life who wrote about what they saw. The report urged colleges to set up J schools and to work to get reporters to be professionals. Today, how many reporters come from any walk of life but the college-educated, skewed toward upper middle class (think of some of the J schools, if only to consider what it costs to become a college-educated journalist--at Medill or Columbia University??) So now, journalists do lack a diversity and no longer represent wide swaths of the public. Enter "citizen reporters" that toggle the wisdom of the Hutchins report, and you have a unsettled journalism and news community. Steve Outing writes about this issue and offers suggestions and a good analysis of existing efforts--except he has left out citj efforts that don't originate in the states, like Ohmynews. Can 'Citizen Journalists' Really Produce Readable Content?

Craiglists watch out Google is coming

toolsGoogle is getting ready to provide classified ads. Here's a screen grab. The story is from Editor&Publisher website via AP and notes that "Google also has confirmed it's working on an online payment service, but CEO Eric Schmidt has said the service won't compete with eBay-owned PayPal." I was just discussing the need for new payment schemes to be developed to help reporters and news organizations who produce valuable content, but haven't figured out how to get paid for it.

The eight Reporters Without Borders nominees for the blog contest

Reporters Without Borders / Internet Freedom desk 24 October 2005 INTERNATIONAL The eight Reporters Without Borders nominees for the blog contest The German radio station Deutsche Welle has published the list of nominees for its weblog contest, including those chosen by Reporters Without Borders for the "freedom of expression" category. The bloggers who have been singled out include former Tunisian judge Mokhtar Yahyaoui, currently on a hunger strike in protest against President Ben Ali's repressive policies. From the more than 130 blogs proposed by Internet users, Reporters Without Borders and Deutsche Welle picked the shortlist of eight because of a particular passion they have displayed in their defence of free expression. All of these eight blogs carry news and information not found in the traditional media. Internet users can vote on www.thebobs.de to indicate who they prefer. But it will be up to the panel of judges to choose the final winners. The results will be announced on 21 November. These are the eight nominees in the special category sponsored by Reporters Without Borders: - China Digital Times (http://chinadigitaltimes.net) A news blog about China that is published outside of the country. A very rich source for those who want to follow Chinese current affairs. - Chronique déplaisante d'une dictature ordinaire (http://www.addisferengi.net) A French resident in Addis Ababa criticises repression in Ethiopia. The blog includes lots of interviews with Ethiopian dissidents. - Manal and Alaa Bit Bucket (www.manalaa.net) An Egyptian blog promoting free expression and human rights. A forum for discussion, but also a resource centre for Arabic-speaking Internet users who would like to set up their own blog. - Wang Yi's microphone (http://zhivago.tianyablog.com) A Chinese intellectual who uses his blog as a microphone to denounce the repressive system that rules his country. - Hanif Mazrooie (http://hanif.ir) An independent Iranian journalist's blog which led to its author spending a month in prison in September 2004. - Parastood (www.parastood.com) One of the oldest Iranian blogs, famous for its open criticism. - Colombian realities (http://lacoctelera.com/realidades) A Colombian journalist who writes critically about a range of issues including his country's pervasive violence and corruption. - Yahyaoui (http://yahyaoui.blogspot.com) The blog of former judge Mokhtar Yahyaoui, one of Tunisia's leading political dissidents and the uncle of cyber-dissident Zouhair Yahyaoui. His blog was recently pirated and rendered unavailable. But it can still be accessed by using Google's "cached" function (enter yahyaoui + blogspot in Google and then choose the "cached" option). Mokhtar Yahyaoui is one of seven Tunisian civil society figures who are currently on hunger strike in protest against the lack of freedom in Tunisia, where his blog is censored, along with dozens of others. Nonetheless, Tunis is to host the World Summit on the Information Society on 16-18 November, which is being organised under the aegis of the United Nations.bloggers

A Meme in the making: This site is moving up in Google and is getting emailed around

The concept: an amusing version of what will go down in the Patrick Fitzgerald inquiry that brings to mind Nixon's "Saturday Night Massacre" from the 70's. This is just a story as far as I can tell, but it is being sent around via email, and so the site is rising up to the top rank of Google if you search "fitzgerald indictment." I love a good meme, but you don't always get to see one building and playing out in front of one's eyes.Bush and Cheney Indicted

Timeline: Judith Miller and the Leak Investigation - New York Times

For reference. Plus, cool interactivity.Timeline: Judith Miller and the Leak Investigation - New York Times Technorati tags: judithmiller

Programming even a reporter can master

The creator of Mosaic which became Netscape, discusses the evolution of programming languages. PHP is accessible to the untrained but motivated person with a good project in mind. If you are my age, you remember when typing was profession--the content creators (writers, authors, executives) wrote and then handed their work to typists. I see the evolution of simple programming for the Web as taking a similar path. What required an expert who programmed someone else's ideas, now is increasingly in the reach of the talented amateur. Young journalists, don't miss out. Learn to present your work and don't rely on others to do it for you. Think "Holavaty."Andreessen: PHP succeeding where Java isn't | CNET News.com

CBS is starting to "get it" as is boarding the Cluetrain.

Rosen and Heyward have a discussion of MSM and what news and media need to be for today's audience. More on this later.CBSNews.com: Blog

Indictment Bingo: Closer, Closer - Wonkette

I have been at the SPJ convention in Las Vegas since the 15th and have fallen behind in my updates. I did get to see Judith "Martyr/Traitor" Miller speak at the conference, and get some of a sense of how her celebrated prison gig is playing out (dividing, actually) in the world of reporters and journalism. Will she stand as the proud figurehead, a slightly less than tragic Joan of Arc--the Martha Stewart of MSM-- leading the crusade for a Federal Shield Law, or will she be repudiated as a "mole" and government tool because of her Defense Dept clearance when she was embedded doing the Niger/yellow cake story. As Bill Lynch wrote to Romenesko,

It strikes me that Ms. Miller's situation is the flip side of the NYT's Jayson Blair coin. He and the Times were rightly disgraced for fabricating. In my opinion, Miller also violated her duty to report the truth by accepting a binding obligation to withhold key facts the government deems secret, even when that information might contradict the reportable "facts."

So, as we wait to see who will be indicted since Fitz isn't going to issue a final report, which Wonkette tells us means that indictments will be forthcoming, keep busy with this handy game in the meantime. Indictment Bingo: Closer, Closer - Wonkette: "19"

Judith Miller speaks on a panel at SPJ 05

judy miller
Originally uploaded by biverson.

Journalist Judith Miller, out of prison after 85 days, at the SPJ National Conference in Las Vegas on October, 18, 2005.

Foto.jpg

Foto.jpg
Originally uploaded by biverson.

look a picture

Ink and Paper or 1s and 0s?

Of course as a blogger I am small and flexible and the WaPo is not, but I was still happy to see that I was talking about the e-paper thing a couple of posts ago. But the discussion of the impact of this on storytelling, complete with its "newspapery" tone paragraph and its "conversational" tone graf examples adds to the mere news that e-paper is here.

Storytelling will change, as well. Long articles such as this, with complete sentences and linguistic device, likely will dwindle in number and be restricted to the remaining newspapers and e-papers. News on small screens, such as that of your cell phone, will spit out in headlines and blurbs and sentences without articles: "Mars rodent attacks NASA probe."

Ink and Paper or 1s and 0s?

SPJ's choice of Miller generates questions

The early hour might tone down the crowd, but it seems that some might attend the SPJ session who don't endorse Miller and her actions.The Left Coaster: The Death of Journalism

The Oscars, the Emmys, now the BOBS...best of blogs

The BOBs - BEST OF THE BLOGS - Deutsche Welle International Weblog Awards 2005

Movies and social networking around them.

The "Clooney boy's " movie is out but not in Chicago yet. Networking around films that make us feel good.Participate.net | Movies have the power to inspire. You have the power to act. Participate!

Why am I so interested in electronic paper? Ask where's the rising cost factor.

Newsprint cost rising steadily. Poynter Online - Romenesko

I4U News - Fujitsu Shows Unique Color Electronic Paper

Flexible, color e-paper....I4U News - Fujitsu Shows Unique Color Electronic Paper

An exercise: the future and what it holds for newsies

Check out this list of subjects that arrived in one of email news alerts today:

• Los Angeles Times names three top-level editors
• * Changes in Wall Street Journal size reflect industry-wide problems
• * Gannett profits fall amid tough ad, cost environment
• * Bob Edwards enjoying new freedom on satellite radio
• * Online agencies promise to help citizen photographers get paid
• * Journalistic blogs to get their own awards

What I see is technology disrupting the status quo. I see the economic models honed during the "Industrial Age" with assumptions about scarcity of resources butting up against an emerging new economy where attention is scarce and where you put something out to get something back (social capital, reputation ranking as revenue generators?) I see blogs as one particular, going from a pariah, rogue technology to an accepted mainstream technology. I see money shifting directly to the "product" and the "producer", cutting out "middlemen" who formerly got into the exchange between audience and content producer because in an industrial age the means of production are expensive and scarce. I am not an economist but as a policy analyst I see where we were. I see where we are going to be. Too bad, just like everyone else, the how we are getting there is only middling clear to me. I will look to my students to get a sense of what they expect, and to the uncertain edge where techs and journalists are meeting to see where the future of news business is. I think the future of news is solid, but whose hands will it be in? Further reading: On "What is a journalist" and what lies in store for journalists: Charles Madigan on Journalism On the future of news on paper. Newsbiz

Blogging and Tenure: Is a blog an asset or liability in academe?

Daniel Drezner, an academic at U of C with a traditional record of publication and scholarship was denied tenure recently. This is an interesting discussion of the role, risks and rewards of blogging in academe, specifically in the tenure track. It's not conclusive, as some tenure track bloggers got tenure while others were denied, but it raises questions about whether to blog, anonymous blogging, and the attitude of many universities toward the idea that faculty might be public intellectuals rather than one-track working drones. I am going to pass it along to those on whose tenure committees I sit. However, none of tenurees is writing a blog that I know of. I can see a day when traditional higher education institutions will experience declining enrollments analogous to the declining circulation in the newspaper business if there is a failure by these institutions to open up a bit and to adjust to the learning modalities of the "pomo" generation.

Sree's good advice about email

I had a week or two of email ambiguity and it was driving me crazy. I agree with most of Sree's "What I hate" list. Poynter Online - I Hate E-mail

Trekking the Media Landscape

Team Blog in action again. Yes, the bloggers you met at Community Media Workshop's June conference will be teaming up again on Oct. 25th. Trekking the Media Landscape

The truth about the media--we are all multitasking and paper is so physical

Forget Blogs, Print Needs Its Own IPod - New York Times: "According to a nifty piece of polling, directed by Bob Papper of Ball State University in Muncie, Ind., and released last week, average Americans spend more time online, on the phone, punching the remote, the radio and the game console than they do sleeping - a total of nine hours a day. And much of the time, they are using more than one medium simultaneously, answering e-mail messages while returning calls with a TV buzzing in the background." And let's not forget electronic paper which has been vaporware but seems to be materializing in 2006. Shucks, wasn't that the year they predicted it in the "googlebot" movie?

'The media' vs. 'We media'

I wouldn't be as hard on Tom Curley, CEO of AP, as this guy is. Curley seemed to at least kind of "get it" last year at the asap is not a step in the right direction, but it is easy to use for big chain news papers. The BBC points are key and will prove to be the raison d'etre for news in the future. To be useful, a news organization must

• Connect audiences (social networking...)
• Verify news for audiences
• Provide analysis, explanation and context for stories the audiences are interested in.

editorsweblog.org: 'The media' vs. 'We media'

Yahoo launches podcast search site | CNET News.com

This was so MSM that I almost didn't post about it. Yet, it will be a milestone so I want to capture the date and initial reactions. Yahoo launches podcast search site | CNET News.com Hey, the real news is how CNET is experimenting with social network analysis under the name "The Big Picture." This interactive image has a bullseye or dartboard like central image. You move and click it to see the connections for this social net. It uses colors to represent aspects of the story--companies and corporations are one color--technologies are another color. You can move around and choose to "center" on any of the nodes in the net to see the story and how the connections play out from a variety of points of view. This is REALLY COOL.

Haptic handsets -- an idea whose time is almost here

"What have they done to man, those shaky hands?" Remember Tommy from the Who? Now imagine a handset with touch sensations (that's basically what 'haptic' means.) Crushing your enemies skull? Why not feel it. Do I need to spell out the implications of haptics for the various sex industries? When I heard Tim Leary talk about "Virtual Valerie" back in the 80's he talked about this coming. I think it will be a big deal but it may end up bringing in regulatory types because it adds a sense to the mix of virtual being there.Telecoms Korea

Trains, football and the nearly ubiquitous phonecam

Train buffs use all kinds of cameras, including phonecams to sanp their favorite trains. Winona Daily News - 6.0 Steelers coach can't hide player failings.

Barbie misses cut for "Top Ten Toys" but so do Bratz

Tech toys dominate magazine's Hot Dozen toy list - Oct. 6, 2005: "'Barbie and Bratz have always been in the Hot Dozen, and I still think they'll be the top two in terms of overall sales this holiday season,' Silver said."

Stock-speak | ajc.com

Why we need social security that is really in some kind of "lock box." Stock-speak | ajc.com

China Closes Web Site after Taishi Village Standoff Report

Repression of Internet sites is a problem in China. Here is one story. China Closes Web Site after Taishi Village Standoff Report Technorati tags: bloggers

This is my blog post

Online News Squared--usually on target with interesting newslettes

Online News Squared

Yahoo-Backed Group To Digitize Library, Academic Content Google's ambitions to scan every scrap of paper on earth (watch those crumpled receipts at the bottom of your man purse, pal) get a competitor as a consortium, includuing Yahoo, announces the "Open Content Alliance" to digitize books. From AP story: Internet powerhouse Yahoo Inc. is setting out to build a vast online library of copyrighted books that pleases publishers -- something rival Google Inc. hasn't been able to achieve. . . . By joining the project, Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Yahoo is hoping to upstage Google, which has a one-year head start on scanning and indexing books so more literature and academic research can be accessed from anywhere in the world with an Internet connection." Even Google will be able to index the group's database. Press Release. Posted by Squared at 09:08 AM | Permalink | Categories: Google, Yahoo | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) Zippy New Google Maps Mashup Neat new tool lets you type in a zip code and see a boundary map. Here. Matt Cutts tells you how to program it yourself. Later he links to more zip-based data sites.(Tx Searchblog) Posted by Squared at 08:59 AM | Permalink | Categories: Google, Mapping | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Technorati tags: tools newsbiz

From the conference for which I did not win a fellowship...

Terry Heaton has some observations from a recent NYC meeting of Online Mediarati. Besides noting that there were few people of color or women, Terry noted that Andrew Heyward of CBS made the observations that:

• The illusion of omniscience is out of date, this idea that everything has an answer and that there's one truth.
• The notion that journalism with a point-of-view is an acceptable form.

Coming from the Heyward, these were pretty noteworthy. Terry goes on to say that Jay Rosen made one of the points that many in the audience may have been unable to understand

Jay Rosen said something terribly important that (imo) went over the heads of most people in the room. He said the nature of authority is changing in our culture, and that this directly impacts all media. He used the example of a person who goes to the doctor and gets a prescription for an ailment. The doctor explains how the medication will work. The patient then proceeds to the drugstore and receives the medicine, along with (perhaps) an explanation from the pharmacist about how the medicine will work. But then the patient goes home and gets on the internet to research the thoughts of others who've used the medicine to discover what THEY think about how it works, and this impacts the doctor's authority. The doctor is still the doctor, but gone is the automatic acceptance of his or her words as gospel. This is new in our world, and I couldn't agree more. It's the major challenge of all institutional authority, and it's one of the truly fascinating things about a culture drifting into postmodernism.

That's what news is about these days. Tim Porter: A New York State of Mind writes about the same conference and what was said there.