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December 05, 2003

Brother, can you spare a....
: So the Republicans want to put Ronald Reagan on the dime -- in response to the CBS/Showtime Reagan movie. Jeesh.
The Democrats don't want to get rid of FDR on the coin.
I'm with the Democrats on this coin toss.
With dimes -- or aircraft carriers -- we should wait until someone's dead until we start building the memorials. In fact, building them while they're still alive is, frankly, rather tasteless. tibia.websense

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If elected, I promise to give all bloggers riches beyond compare
: Vote for your favorite bloggers.tibia.websense

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Later
: About to leave the MIT event. Snow, snow, snow. Back on later. Not too much later, I hope...tibia.websense

: UPDATE: Four f'ing hours. Four f'ing hours. Home. I wanted Starbucks. Latte liberals closed. Wimps. Pizza. Wine. More wine. And more wine. Later....tibia.websense

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Overheard at Time
: At today's MIT Media Lab event at the Time Inc. headquarters, Dan Ariely, a very impressive prof in media and economics, is speaking and is worried about exceeding his slot:

Ariely: I have no watch.
Person in audience: Time is money.
Ariely: Actually, it's not.

tibia.websense

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Iran riot?
: Via the Blog Iran newsletter comes a report on WorldNet Daily of a riot in Iran. It comes down to one source. But that's how news gets out of a place such as this:

Iranian Supreme Revolutionary Guard forces under the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei reportedly killed a 10-year-old boy in the country's minority Baloch region yesterday, touching off a massive uprising against the Islamic regime countered by a deadly crackdown and imposition of martial law, according to sources on the scene.
Amid burning banks, stores and government offices, at least 30 Baloch protesters are dead and 80 injured in the southeastern city of Saravan near the Pakistani border, said Malek Meerdora, who immigrated to Canada from the city in 1993.
Meerdora told WorldNetDaily the Iranian government has attempted to shut off communication from the city, but he has been in contact with sources there via satellite telephone and the Internet.

tibia.websense

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Relevant to the photo post below, Walter Bender, director of the MIT Media Lab, just said: "There are more cameras than people in the world."tibia.websense

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Mash that meme
: Lost Remote tells us that the woman who was allegedly trampled in a consumer-electronics crush at WalMart is a "frequent faller" and litigator. Aw, why do the fun stories always the ones that are lies?tibia.websense

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Good for you
: The British medical journal the Lancet calls for an outright ban on smoking.
: Meanwhile, British MPs are trying to blame supermarkets for obesity.
Is government here to keep us healthy? Well, yes. Though they shouldn't act as if they can do it alone.tibia.websense

: UPDATE: And here's Joe Lieberman whining about fast food.tibia.websense

: How's this for a simple rule: Cigarettes are bad for you and have no other reason to exist. I'd ban them. Food and everything else for you is fine in moderation -- and moderation is our job, not government's. Simple, eh?
tibia.websense

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The power of the camera
: The Red Cross and Red Crescent have just signed a deal with Reuters to distribute photos they take during relief operations at Reuters' Alertnet, a foundation-arm operation meant to publicize humanitarian crises.

Iraq is just the latest in a series of humanitarian crises that have received wide media coverage on the strength of iconic imagery. Before Ali there was Rosetta, the baby born to a mother who had clung to a tree for two days, who came to symbolise 2000's floods in Mozambique.
Now there are signs that increasingly media-savvy emergency relief charities are making greater use of photography to publicise their activities.
Sean Sutton, a photographer with the UK-based charity Mines Advisory Group (MAG), has been using both traditional and new media approaches to publicise his group's operations. Missions to heavily mined areas are turned into "live documentaries", with daily postings of the group's demining progress on a website which is, in turn, publicised via press releases....
In some respects the work of humanitarian relief charities can resemble an alternative newsgathering network. Relief charities tend to be based in places where disasters and conflicts are most likely to happen - poorer countries where media organisations tend to have least presence.
This is the central idea behind a new partnership between news agency Reuters and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) signed in Geneva today.
The partnership aims to harness the power of pictures to publicise humanitarian emergencies. Red Cross and Red Crescent societies, who are committed to sharing information about their activities via the AlertNet website, will get free access to Reuters' database of pictures for use in their appeals and publications. In return they will supply photographs of disasters and other humanitarian activities for distribution by Reuters.
The arrangement will allow Reuters to bring to the world humanitarian stories from remote areas which otherwise would get overwhelmed by the pressure of other news events. It is also hoped that greater cooperation will help build up the photojournalism skills of relief workers, enabling them to best publicise their work.

Cue the journalism punditry: Here is a news organization (albeit a foundation arm) and a news brand saying they will use independent advocacy agencies as an "alternative newsgathering network." Obviously, this outlet will be used for advocacy. So is advocacy journalism?
In this new age when everybody has a printing press (and, more powerfully, a camera), the new answer is probably, yes.
I'll have no problem with this -- I'll applaud it -- if I see Reuters allow in other agencies and other alternative sources, including individuals (all properly labeled by source). If this is used to push one agenda, that's not journalism. If this is used to find new sources of news, new witnesses to what is happening from anywhere, anytime, then that is new jouralism.
We shall see.
tibia.websense

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News for you
: Offering a tabloid edition of the Times of London has goosed circulation by 20-30k.
Simple morale to this story: News wants to be convenient. tibia.websense

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U.N. PR
: See this story in the Washington Post suggesting that the United Nations take over the Internet.
ARrrrrrgh.
Now I used to think that the U.N. was a good and necessary thing (I still hope that view can be restored). I used to think that U.N.-haters tended to be survivalist nuts. But after our experience with the U.N. and Iraq, I note that my immediate and reflexive reaction to U.N. involvement in anything has changed.
It's ARrrrrrgh.
The U.N. has done itself huge and possibly permanent damage in this country. ANd we're just seeing the ripples of that. tibia.websense

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Disappearances
: The site was down (along with many others) because of some problem at Hosting Matters, now obviously fixed.tibia.websense

: I'll be at an all-day, mind-expanding MIT Media Lab thing today; blogging when possible....tibia.websense

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