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BuzzMachine
by Jeff Jarvis
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March 31, 2004
Friends
: Finally got to meet fellow blogger Rex Hammock last night. He's from Nashville; I'm from Jersey; we both just happened to be at Northwestern yesterday; blog kismet.
What's amazing about these first-time meetings with bloggers you know well: I felt as if we were old friends catching up... only we were catching up on each other's entire lives. Because we know each other here, there's an instant trust.
He's a damned nice guy and I'm looking forward to meeting again next time we pass by.free-download motion-DV-Studio
: Update/Reality Check: But then again... I'm sitting in the airport lounge now and the guy behind me is telling his life's story and I doubt the guy he's telling it to is a blogger. free-download motion-DV-Studio
Feet to fire
: Arianna Huffington writes a cross between a wet kiss and a rallying cry for blogs at Kos: A Kerry victory will be due not only to the blogosphere's funding efforts but to the bloggers holding Kerry's feet to the fire. It's bloggers who'll have to urge Kerry not to run away from his voting record, but to embrace his liberalism -- and define it as the foundation of the values that led to this country's great social breakthroughs. ...
The blogosphere is now the most vital news source in our country. I've toiled in the world of books and syndicated column writing, but more liberating is the blogosphere, where the random thought is honored, and where passion reigns. While paid journalists often just follow a candidate around or sit in the White House press room and rehash a schedule, blogs break through the din of our 500 channel universe and the narrow conventional wisdom. For that the blogosphere has my undying gratitude. Oh, I agree about keeping his feet to the fire.
We need to keep his feet to the fire on the war on terrorism.
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Do as I do, not as I say
: This is why you should never listen to surveys.
This survey says Americans think there are way too many reality shows.
These ratings put American idol (twice), Apprentice, Survivor, Fear Factor, and Extreme Makeover atop the ratings.
Americans will, indeed, get sick of reality shows (we always OD on the trends that take over TV) but we'll still watch them longer than we'll say we watch them. [via PR Bop]free-download motion-DV-Studio
Judge them by the company they keep: Congress hates Howard Stern but loves Michael Jackson
: Wonkette has an exclusive report from Michael Jackson's inexplicable visit to Congress. The Gloved One's entourage is a chaotic storm of confusion and unease -- it lacks the dignity of other star entourages who sweep down corridors, exhibiting confidence and projecting power. Everyone in the Gloved One's group -- bodyguards, handlers, apologists -- all look haggered and confused, but the haggardness and confusion looks self imposed. The group looks like it could use an adult to whack it upside the head, to tell everyone to straighten up, settle down, and then the whole damn pack wouldn't look so silly. free-download motion-DV-Studio
: Rep. Shiela Jackson Lee on Today about her meeting with Jackson today: "We'll actually be discussing real issues." Wow, real issues. free-download motion-DV-Studio
What, no naked lesbians?
: I'm tuning into the start of Air America and all I'm hearing so far is a medly of bad rock appropriate for rallies. free-download motion-DV-Studio
: A helpful commenter informs us that programming begins at noon with Al Franken (couldn't find that on the AirAmerica site).free-download motion-DV-Studio
: Meanwhile on Howard this morning, Tim Robbins appeared, now that they're political bedfellows. No big political rants. Howard, of course, said that soon there'll "be no place for my art."
To which Robbins added: "Or your fart."free-download motion-DV-Studio
Spam's can
: AOL is giving away to one of its users a Porsche siezed from a spammer. free-download motion-DV-Studio
March 30, 2004
And good riddance
: There have been reports today that Steve Case wants to buy AOL back for $10 billion. The stories, incredibly don't report the value of AOL at the time of the world's biggest merger mistake, but from what I find about the value put on Time Warner and the value of the combined entity at its foolish height, it seems that AOL was then supposedly "worth" about 10 times what it's "worth" now. I say, sell the turkey to the turkey.free-download motion-DV-Studio
Whereabouts
: I've been at Northwestern's Medill School of Journalism all morning; here the rest of the day. Blogging light until later. free-download motion-DV-Studio
Feelings
: Scott Rosenberg objects to my response to his praise for the Clarke apology. (My original post here; his here.) He said the apology filled a void in the national psyche; I said this isn't about feelings, it's war. Rosenberg today: But surely war is one of the most emotionally intense experiences humankind has created. And how can we talk about "life and death" as if there are no "feelings" involved? What could be more emotional? Tell me about it. I know those feelings well; my life has not been and will not be the same since surviving that day. I feel those feelings. And that's why I object to Clarke exploiting them to make his rhetorical brownie points: I'll apologize on behalf of the entire frigging U.S. government to make them look bad and me look good and you feel good. Crap.
Rosenberg goes further: That doesn't mean Bush couldn't have stepped forward and admitted the obvious -- that 9/11 represented a colossal failure of the American government to protect the American people. How could it not be? And why is it so hard just to say so and move on? Why did it take 2 1/2 years for any official to be able to bring him or herself to the point of uttering this plain fact? Well, first, because it's not a plain fact: There is no clear proof that anyone in any recent administration could have stopped this. Second, again, because these attacks were in no way our fault. Don't ever forget that. free-download motion-DV-Studio
: (A different) Scott adds in the comments: Imagine if, instead of his Day of Infamy speech, FDR had gone on the radio to apologize for f'ing up and letting the Japanese bombers through to Pearl Harbor.
And and at that, these days, others would say that's not enough; we should have understood the frustrations of the Japanese and Germans over their cramped living space and their jealousy at all our space and how we brought this on ourselves.
Am I becoming clear yet, Scott R? This is war. It's not an encounter session. It's war.free-download motion-DV-Studio
Free debate
: After Lawrence Lessig put his new book up for free under the Creative Commons license, Akma came up with the great idea to have folks volunteer to read it as a permitted derivative work.free-download motion-DV-Studio
As I was reading the book via PDF on the flight yesterday, I got another idea for a derivative work:free-download motion-DV-Studio
Take a book and annotate it with contrary evidence and arguments and questions.free-download motion-DV-Studio
Call it the fisking edition.free-download motion-DV-Studio
Mind you, I'm not saying that because I'm going after Lessig or have any intention of doing that edition -- he's too damned smart and too good at arguing his ideas and, as I've said before, I'm too smart to find myself on the losing end of a debate with him even if I do disagree with him. Fisking is just an easy way to describe what I mean.free-download motion-DV-Studio
Or maybe I should call it the Talmudic editions.free-download motion-DV-Studio
I'd love to see someone who does know what he or she is talking about dive into the book and give me either more facts to help me make up my mind or more facts to help me make my arguments. I'd love to hear two sides.free-download motion-DV-Studio
I'd love to see Tim Blair create the annotated edition of any Michael Moore book. Or Matthew Yglesias create a civilized response to the rantings of Ann Coulter. Those would be pure entertainment. I wouldn't mind taking on the blatherings of Republic.com. What books would you take on?free-download motion-DV-Studio
And once we take on these books, the authors can create their next derivative works, replying. And, I know, I'm creating a ringing endorsement of Creative Commons with this. But wouldn't it be great to take a book and break it open at the spine for some back-and-forth?free-download motion-DV-Studio
Why not turn a book into a conversation?free-download motion-DV-Studio
: UPDATE: Inspired by this post and Ernie Miller's, Aaron Swartz has put the entire book into a wiki. Also way cool.
My suggestion was that people annotate the book.
A wiki also allows people to edit the book. Hmmmm. Not sure what Lessig would think of that. Not sure what I would think if I could no longer tell what came from him and what came from his debaters. free-download motion-DV-Studio
Heartfelt
: As I was driving around the Chicago 'burbs yesterday, I saw a big purple bus with gigantic letters on it happily announcing: "We're spreading the word!" I thought, man, the Jesus squad has taken over! Then I got closer. It was an ad for antacid.free-download motion-DV-Studio
Automation
: Here's the problem with automation: Topix presents this as the lead story (big headline, even) on its weblog news page: "I'm in Cambridge at the MIT/Harvard Brain Boot Camp this week, so blogging will be light for a few days." Film of Carl Zimmer's dinner at 11. free-download motion-DV-Studio
: But I joke. I'm hitting that blog roundup daily, and more.
Topix cofounder Rich Skrenta emails me this update: Just a quick note to let you know that Topix.net is now crawling over 6,000 news sources, up from 3,600. Here is an approximate breakdown of the kinds of sources we are crawling:
24% Daily newspapers
19% AM & FM news radio stations
15% Weekly newspapers
15% B2B and consumer magazines
12% TV stations
9% College newspapers
5% Government websites
1% Weblogs free-download motion-DV-Studio
Piggybacking
: The irony drips like syrup: AT&T is selling VOIP in New Jersey. So what once was the world's largest telecommunications company is now reduced piggybacking on your cable modem bandwidth.free-download motion-DV-Studio
Like a bunny
: Hugh MacLeod alerts me that Technorati just passed 2 million blogs served.free-download motion-DV-Studio
Janet Jackson, covered
: She appears on Letterman with her infamous breasts puffed with pride. Dave leers: "Now, that's almost malfunctioning, isn't it?"free-download motion-DV-Studio
She has her navel framed in metal (and for all I know, she has that steel pastey on still). I've heard of rubber fetishes. Even latex. But metal? free-download motion-DV-Studio
Dave keeps trying and trying to interview her. "Why are we talking about this, Dave," she exasperates. free-download motion-DV-Studio
She: "It was so embarrassing for me to have so many people see this little breast."
He: "Well...."free-download motion-DV-Studio
: UPDATE: From the comments. Janet Jackson was bleeped when she said "Jesus."
Aw, Jesus, this is getting ridiculous.free-download motion-DV-Studio
March 29, 2004
Fate
: Rex Hammock and I have been promising to grab lunch the next time he's in New York from Nashville but he's at Northwestern tomorrow and so am I so we're grabbing a blogdinner.
Anybody have any Evanston restaurant recommendations?free-download motion-DV-Studio
MiniMe
: My DNA is very heartland America: all 'burbs and 'burgers.
Today I trolled through a bunch of Chicago suburbs to get ready for the start of the Northwestern hyperlocal project tomorrow... and also to wander around my roots.
Cue Streisand's Memories.
Feel free to get off the bus now and skip the tour. free-download motion-DV-Studio
I hadn't been to my childhood home in, oh, 30 or 40 years. That's it above: a much-smaller-than-I-could-remember bungalow in Elmhurst, IL: very Wonder Years in its prime; very Jerry Springer now.
We moved there when I was 1 and moved away in 1960, but I can still remember the inside.
I wandered up and down the street taking a few pictures. As I walked back past the Jarvis joint, wondering where the plaque should go, a guy opened the front door wearing PJs that don't cover his hairy belly (it was 3 in the afternoon). I spooked him. He spooked me. I explained that we built this house in... I gulp... 1955. Damn. The house, once so new, is almost 50 years old. But then, of course, so am I.
Do I look this bad?free-download motion-DV-Studio
And there's the place where I ruined my diet and heart for life. Actually, there was a better burger place across the street but was torn down decades ago. This joint predated McDonald's but it's where I came to love burgers and fries and fizzy drinks.
As I said, I'm all-American. free-download motion-DV-Studio
We moved away to Iowa when I was in the first grade and, neurotic little bastard that I was, I got an ulcer. Kids didn't do therapy back then.
Then we moved to South Jersey, then New York, then back to Illinois (I went through four elementary schools in three states and four high schools in three states, which, together with the ulcer, explains a lot about my psychoses, eh?). We moved two towns away from Elmhurst, to Lombard, a town known for lilacs and for breeding the Unabomber.
I drove by my highschool, below, which looks like a pharmaceutical factory. Heck, it probably is.
I drove by the Pizza Hut where I took my first love, Markie Kimble, on dates. Now you know why it didn't last. (If you're expecting a where-is-she-now update, I'll fail you; she doesn't appear to be Googleable.)
Over there was the Jack in the Box where she worked (it's now a boarded-up fish franchise) and down there was where I worked as kitchen manager -- in charge of busboys and spudboys -- at the Ponderosa Steak House (now torn down).
Franchises didn't just feed us. They were the Match.com of our day.free-download motion-DV-Studio
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I went to Schaumburg's Woodfield Mall, which would have made Lileks jealous in its day. For all the time I spent in it, it's strange: Not a single memory of the place.
Malls cauterize memory.free-download motion-DV-Studio
And finally, I made it to Evanston and Northwestern, having dinner in the post-modern food franchise, Wolfgang Puck's place, and -- while I'm on this theme of food, romance, and memories -- I wandered by the haunts where I hung out with my college girlfriend, who is quite Googleable, and who is now known as a leading "postmodern lesbian philosopher."
Ain't symmetry grand? free-download motion-DV-Studio
Out trolling suburbs and memories... Back soon...free-download motion-DV-Studio
Boy, I love it when I get to the airport in time to catch an earlier flight.... Later....free-download motion-DV-Studio
Lies and the lying liars who get book contracts
: Robert Rivard, editor of the San Antonio Express-News, writes that scandals in journalism -- in the age of Jayson Blair, Jack Kelly, Stephen Glass, Andrew Gilligan -- aren't getting the coverage they deserve: There is another scandal-ridden industry these days, come to think of it, but you read far less about it. High-profile cases are covered, but the larger problem is not considered particularly newsworthy.
That industry is our own, the press. I hate to think how big that "larger problem" could be. But here's an editor saying it's there. free-download motion-DV-Studio
When I was a reporter, I was obsessive about reporting facts accurately. I'd stare at my reporters' notebook trying to decipher my own bad brand of shorthand to sweat out whether the quote said "which" or "that" and if I wasn't sure, I'd throw out the quote marks. Of course, that was obsession to a fault. I want to shake up the younger me and shout, "Forest! Trees!" But getting facts and quotes right was a canon of the craft and getting something wrong was a harikari moment. The reporters I knew were all like that. So maybe I was naive then and didn't see the bigger scandal brewing. Or maybe times have changed. Or maybe it's always true that every barrel has bad apples. Rivard says: This wave of dishonesty has surfaced in newsrooms across the country, including some of the most prestigious ones. Most editors I have asked believe there are undiscovered cheaters still at work.
Every newspaper industry publication and Web site chronicles one disclosure after another: a food writer in Hartford, a community reporter in Macon — the list goes on and on.
Isn't this news of general interest?
The number of corrupt journalists is small, but in the minds of the public, one unethical reporter can undermine the integrity of the entire institution. Just like a single misspelled word in a headline distracts the reader from everything else on the page. What's really scandalous to him is that these bad apples keep getting hired. If you knew a doctor murdered patients, you wouldn't hire him. If you knew that a job candidate came from the strategic finance department of Enron, I hope you wouldn't hire him. But the publishing industry keeps hiring liars: Blair and Glass get book contracts. Mike Barnicle gets hired at the Boston Herald. Says Rivard: Last week, Samuel G. Freedman, a professor at Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism, wrote a piece for USA Today calling for total banishment from the trade for all exposed fabulists and plagiarists.
"Journalists who fabricate never should be hired or contracted to write again," he wrote. "Their presence in any nonfiction publication damages me, and it damages all my fellow journalists." ...
The plagiarists are putting all of us at risk. Freedman's idea deserves serious debate.
Coming to terms with our problem is the first step. Sharing the depth of the problem with our readers and showing them the prescriptive steps we are taking is the next step.
And we should include the readers if we intend to recover lost ground. [via IWantMedia] free-download motion-DV-Studio
No verbs
: No verbs. No need. Shepard Smith live. On TV. Fair and balanced. Lots of action. Fast talk. No long sentences. No paragraphs, even. Lots of exclamation marks. Exclamation marks better than verbs. Cheaper, too. No writers. No verbs. free-download motion-DV-Studio
The Daily Stern
: The NY Post said this morning that Stern is negotiating to get funding to start his own satellite radio service, buying channel space on existing networks.
Stern said this morning he isn't in such talks and knows nothing about it... but it's not a bad idea.
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March 28, 2004
Jersey blogs!
: Blogger, NY Times contributor, and all around good guy Debra Galant has a nice story on Jersey blogs in the Times Jersey section, which, unfortunately, is not online (hey, says the Times, it's only Jersey). But Debra kindly put up the text on her blog. The lead is our NJ.com blogger MeetUp; the kicker is yours truly. Sadly, inbetween, some dastardly editor cut out mentions of some of her favorite blogs (repeat after me: Why do we like weblogs? No editors!), so Debra links to them on her blog. See how well blogs and print work together?free-download motion-DV-Studio
Hyperlocal day at Northwestern
: I'm going to be at Northwestern's Medill School of Journalism (my, ahem, alma mater) to begin a project with Rich Gordon's management students to investigate the potential of hyperlocal content in towns.
I'd love to have your ideas.
The hope is that the students will go into a pilot town and find that there is untold wealth of local information that can be brought together to serve a community: content of, by, and for the people.
You know I'm already working to start hyperlocal blogs. But we need much more. We need to encourage more people to blog on their own or on our sites (we just held MeetUps in two towns to start spreading seeds); we want to see more viewpoints and more information from more communities. We need to gather local government information from meetings and officials. We need to see what school information is out there. We hope to get video that's already being shot of meetings and sporting events. What information can be scraped and blogged and linked to?
Any ideas? What's happening in your town? What sources of useful local information can you name? What information do you want?free-download motion-DV-Studio
Ralph thinking of dropping out???
: I like the hint in this AP story that Ralph Nader seems to be considering his fate in the race: Ralph Nader said Sunday he will meet with John Kerry next month to discuss the effort to defeat President Bush in the November election.
While stressing that he is still a competitor in the race, the independent presidential hopeful said he views his candidacy as a "second front against Bush, however small." Well, of course, that's egotistical and stupid: Too many fronts split up an army and lose the war. But maybe there's hope that Ralph will drop out. free-download motion-DV-Studio
Reality News
: I've been thinking about how to bring reality TV to the news.free-download motion-DV-Studio
Of course, you could try to argue that news already is reality TV. But, of course, we know better. TV news and everything that feeds it is spun-dried, homogonized, pasteurized, purified, prepackaged, precooked, prechewed, commoditized, co-conspired, and repeated a hundred times a day. It's as real as Disneyworld. free-download motion-DV-Studio
So here's my concept for Reality News: free-download motion-DV-Studio
Take a bunch of citizen reporters -- moms, grandpas, students, poor people, immigrants, ugly people, webloggers... people who would never otherwise get on TV except on American Idol or Survivor -- and send them out on the stories they want to cover to get the answers to the questions they want to ask with camera crews and trucks with big network letters on the side -- and dare the powerful to turn them away. free-download motion-DV-Studio
This does Michael Moore one better, for this isn't an obnoxious publicity vat just trying to get more fame and more fortune. These are real people, consumers, voters, citizens. free-download motion-DV-Studio
So send them to the headquarters of the latest company ripping off customers or stockholders and dare the PR people to turn them away. Or send them to any government agency (I nominate the FCC these days) or any politician's office to demand answers to their questions about what they're really doing for us. free-download motion-DV-Studio
Even if they are turned away, that would make great TV -- we'd have a great time sneering at some slimy PR guy sent down to stonewall the citizens -- and soon enough, the powerful would have to realize that they're smarter to let the citizens in and information out. Pretty soon, you'd see the citizens sitting down to real conversations with company presidents and senators and newsmakers. Why, I bet you'd even see our citizen reporters interviewing the President, before long. free-download motion-DV-Studio
The beauty of this is that the citizen reporters won't be trying to build a relationship with news sources; there won't be any conflict of interest here.free-download motion-DV-Studio
And by all means, let's make it interactive: Let us propose our own questions from the Web. Let us nominate citizen reporters and pick the best and fire the rest. free-download motion-DV-Studio
I guarantee you that you'd see compelling news you won't see elsewhere. And you'll see other news shows respond to this competitive threat by trying to get more, well, real.free-download motion-DV-Studio
: Dave Winer has another take on reality news.free-download motion-DV-Studio
: UPDATE: Jeff Sharlet has a great story about being a reporter who didn't know better, from the comments: ...And I wouldn't worry about amateurs getting rebuffed by PR people. One of my first jobs in journalism (a point at which I was, essentially, an amateur with a paycheck) was covering naval courts martial in San Diego. I didn't know my editor had sicced me on the local Naval press office just to bug them, with no more hope for my success in gaining access than he'd had for the last several rebuffed reporters.
So the PR guy blew me off, and I thought I was going to lose my first job. I called again. And again. Not knowing any better, I kept calling up the chain of command, yabbering about freedom of the press, etc. Til finally I got someone in the Pentagon who called someone who called someone -- etc. -- until the local PR guy called me, with apologies, and anytime access to the low level courts martial not normally deemed newsworthy. Which ended up becoming the subject of stories about race wars on aircraft carriers, sex and the chain of command, and truly draconian military drug laws. Newsworthy, indeed.
I wonder if now, as a more experienced journalist, I'd be so persistent -- I might dismiss that PR guy as a dead end. But amateurs don't know when to quit. The 9/11 widows are a perfect example of the power of amateur news gatherers... free-download motion-DV-Studio
Consolidation phobia
: Sam Whitemore at Forbes.com pooh-poohs fear of media consolidation. He sees new voices in blogs, low-power FM (which I wish were allowed to be commercial so local entrepreneurs could make a go of it instead of just goody-goody organizations with money to burn); he sees healthy skepticism about big media; and he sees nothing sinister in a public media company trying to make money. Politically awakened and technologically equipped, we have nothing to fear except our own intellectual laziness. The viewpoints are out there. Even if you're utterly convinced that powerful ideological forces are out to control what you see, hear and read, don't just whine about it. You want the freedom to know the truth? Put down your remote, use the tools and methods at your disposal and go fight for it. free-download motion-DV-Studio
March 27, 2004
Horses mouths
: Audible offers the 9/11 hearings for free. [via OnlineBlog]free-download motion-DV-Studio
Correcting the corrections policy
: Robert Cox at The National Debate has been waging a singlehanded campaign to get The Times to publish corrections of its op-ed columnists' errors, which up until now has been up to the individual columnists.
He has the first glimmers of victory at hand.
Dan Okrent writes in Sunday's Times: [Editor Page Editor Gail] Collins explains why columnists must be allowed the freedom of their opinions, but insists that they "are obviously required to be factually accurate. If one of them makes an error, he or she is expected to promptly correct it in the column." Corrections, under this new rule, are to be placed at the end of a subsequent column, "to maximize the chance that they will be seen by all their readers, everywhere," a reference to the wide syndication many of the columnists enjoy....
In the coming months I expect columnist corrections to become a little more frequent and a lot more forthright than they've been in the past. Yet the final measure of Collins's success, and of the individual columnists, will be not in the corrections but in the absence of the need for them. At last. It's the right move. free-download motion-DV-Studio
: Okrent also acknowledges that NY Times lawyers went after Cox' parody op-ed correction site with a stupid "sledgehammer."
I stayed out of that battle as it occurred, since I'm related to both big and small media and thought that in this case, it put me in a conflict. I'll say now that it turned out the way it should have turned out in the first instance, which I said privately to people who asked. Cox' page needed to be clear that it was a parody not only because that's the way to play it safe legally -- parody is protected -- but also because you never want to confuse your readers. The Times should have asked for just that from the first and I'll bet Cox would have seen the point and agreed; instead, they pulled out the sledgehammer and gave the paper a bad name in this world even as Okrent has been working hard to rebuild its good name. Happy ending in any case.free-download motion-DV-Studio
: And Okrent says this about columnists in today's column: I sometimes think opinion columns ought to carry a warning: "The following is solely the opinion of the author, supported by data I alone have chosen to include. Live with it." Opinion is inherently unfair. The same could be put over the door of many if not most weblogs. But the real question is how often it should be used over news reporting. Yup, that's the real question. free-download motion-DV-Studio
The Daily Stern...
: ... takes a day off. Things will heat up again shortly...free-download motion-DV-Studio
Playing by the "rules"
: Cleveland Plain Dealer editor-in-chief and blogger Doug Clifton looks at at Richard Clarke and sees an issue with background briefings and unnamed sources and spin and the rules of the game called government and the press. Clarke said one thing in his book and another in a background briefing. He tried to explain away the contradiction saying that he was spinning the company spin at the briefing. Says Clifton: On one level, that's understandable. Haven't we all defended the institutions we work for out of loyalty, obligation, self-preservation?
On the other hand, when does principle trump loyalty, obligation, self-preservation? Should Clarke have told his bosses, "I can't, in conscience, spin for you"? Should he have threatened to quit in protest? Should he have availed himself of the other time-honored Washington tradition, leaked his real feelings -on background - to a well-placed reporter?
At this point that's all academic and a cloud remains over the credibility of Clarke's testimony because he played by the rules of Washington. He spun on background in support of the administration he worked for and expected the conventions to be honored.
In so doing he forgot the more basic rule of Washington, first described by Harry Truman: "If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog."
Let's assume Clarke's version of things is true. He thought the Bush administration was being less than attentive to the terrorist threat but when called upon to do the administration's bidding in a background briefing, he played the good soldier.
With the help of a cooperative and, I would add, co-opted, press the American public was mislead on this vital question.
And because briefing on background is so pervasive in Washington, misleading the public is the norm, not the exception.
If the rules of journalism were changed and the use of the unnamed source were banned, would the public have a truer sense of reality?
That's a discussion for another day. Strong words, blunt questions.
[Full disclosure: Cleveland.com is one of my day-job sites.]
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Contrarian to contrarian
: Microsoft says it will create a search of blogs and all the Microsnots come out of the woodwork. I don't get it. Blogs cry for attention and then when they get it, some bloggers cry at the attention.
(Full disclosure: Moreover, on whose board I serve, powers Microsoft's news search; I don't know whether it is powering the blog search.)
Liz Lawley at Corante kvetches: Somehow, the idea of Microsoft—or any other corporate entity—deciding for everyone what blogs are “relevant to people” is not reassuring to me. The potential for marginalization of interesting, provocative, or unique voices is enormous. Every blogger does that and it's not marginalization; it's service.
Dan Gillmor gives a backhanded compliment: "Another Microsoft "innovation" that's already been invented -- see, for example Technorati and Feedster -- but overall it's good to see the big guys getting behind blogging as a form of its own."
Just because it's Microsoft, that doesn't mean it's evil.
Instead of throwing brickbats at Microsoft, why don't we tell Google to get its act together and include blogs -- selected blogs, I might add -- in GoogleNews (over some of the crackpot sites included now)? And wouldn't it be nice if the New York Times put up a list -- a selected list, I might add -- of notable blogs?
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The Old Republic
: The New Republic's cover story -- Dictatorship.com, Why the Internet Won't Topple Tyranny -- is a load of naysaying, stick-in-the-sludge, cynical, behind-the-times, underreported, snotty crap. free-download motion-DV-Studio
TNR foreign editor Joshua Kurlantzick argues that because the Internet has not yet toppled a dictatorship and because some dictatorships have lately become more dictatorial, the Internet has failed and it cannot change the world. For years, a significant subset of the democratization industry--that network of political scientists, think tanks, and policymakers--has placed its bets (and, in many cases, its money) on the Web's potential to spread liberal ideas in illiberal parts of the world. Whereas once American politicians and democratization groups focused on older technologies, such as radio, today their plans to spread democracy rest in considerable part on programs for boosting Internet access....
But world leaders, journalists, and political scientists who tout the Internet as a powerful force for political change are just as wrong as the dot-com enthusiasts who not so long ago believed the Web would completely transform business. While it's true that the Internet has proved itself able to disseminate pop culture in authoritarian nations--not only Laos, but China, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, and elsewhere--to date, its political impact has been decidedly limited. It has yet to topple--or even seriously undermine--its first tyrannical regime. Well, how long did it take radio to topple a regime? Did radio ever topple a regime? Did TV? It didn't tear down the Wall (see below); as communism teetered, isolated Moscow was more progressive than media-bombarded Berlin. Though, let's also add that the spread of culture instead of just politics did have an impact on the pent-up demand for freedom in Berlin (the lusted-after commodity of the West wasn't political debate; it was bananas... and rock 'n' roll). And besides, who set that as the pass-or-fail test of a medium as a catalyst of change: start a revolution or give up? Let's also remember that the Internet is new and is not widely available in such places as Cuba and North Korea. free-download motion-DV-Studio
The story is shamefully ignorant of the medium and the inroads it has made. There isn't a mention of Iran, the situation I know best, where 100,000 weblogs are reporting news that can't be reported and scaring the mullahs and even making them join in. free-download motion-DV-Studio
There isn't a sense that what makes it possible for the Internet to make inroads is its distributed structure: Yes, China can cut off a site here and a site there. But a thousand, then a million webloggers and expats and citizens can repeat information and news and opinions that have been forbidden. It takes time -- damnit -- but these seeds will grow. Yes, China has jailed some Internet writers but, as I heard from a sociologist from China a few weeks ago, Internet access is handled by pay-as-you-go cards and most users are, in the end, anonymous and can't be hunted down. He also said that China has failed at blocking Google and its caches of pages. (Ditto Iran.) Seeds will grow.free-download motion-DV-Studio
There isn't even a sense of what the Internet can do in the United States and Europe. Another shortcoming of the Internet is that it lends itself to individual rather than communal activities. It "is about people sitting in front of a terminal, barely interacting," says one Laotian researcher. The Web is less well-suited to fostering political discussion and debate because, unlike radio or even television, it does not generally bring people together in one house or one room. Well, tell that to Howard Dean or MoveOn.org. OK, so that's in a free nation where we do have a right to gather. But we've seen the Internet bring people and opinions together in Iran (and, again, I'll apologize that I'm not more up to date on other nations but Iran is, at least, a proof of concept). The writer is woefully ignorant about the basic and proven capabilities of the medium. free-download motion-DV-Studio
The TNR story further ignores the power of the connected expat community. I just got a contact from someone who is trying to bring Turkmenistan expats into weblogs for human rights organizing and activism. free-download motion-DV-Studio
There's some strange, jealous agenda coming out of TNR: an old, fuddy-duddy activist viewpoint that says this new-fangled Internet thang can't be as good as old-fashioned pamphleterring and armed insurrection.free-download motion-DV-Studio
Would Che blog? free-download motion-DV-Studio
No one says the Internet is going to rebuild the world overnight -- especially in countries where technology and connectivity and openness exist in inverse proportion to oppression. Repressive regimes will try to block the Internet just as they try to block news from getting in or out and just as they try to block all other media and communication. But the Internet can spread news and connect people and let the world watch tyranny and organize protest and resist repression like no other medium before. free-download motion-DV-Studio
The Internet is subversive.free-download motion-DV-Studio
In the last century, Coke meant freedom. In this century, the Internet means freedom. free-download motion-DV-Studio
[Thanks, Oliver, for sending the story.]free-download motion-DV-Studio
Good bye, Lenin
: Last night, I went to a late show of Good Bye, Lenin because no one else in the family but me would want to drive forty minutes to see a two-hour movie in German about East Berlin and the fall of the Wall.free-download motion-DV-Studio
It was worth the drive. Lenin is a comedy about communism: A devoted mother -- who had to raise her children alone when her husband went to the West -- sees her son arrested in a democracy demonstration, falls to a heart attack, and spends eight months in a coma. In the meantime, the Wall came down and her son protects her from further shock by making believe that the old DDR still reigns: finding her familiar commie brands for her and even making East German TV news to explain the Coke billboard that suddenly appears outside her window. In the process, he reinvents his nation and its socialism into what it should have been but never was.free-download motion-DV-Studio
I was lucky enough to spend time behind the Wall in the '80s. It's experiences like that that do remind you how lucky you are. Every time I'd come back across Checkpoint Charlie, I was grateful for the colors and tastes and life and choice of the West. That's such a trivial measure of freedom, but it's the scale of reference we, the free, have. These days, the news is concentrating on so many more drastic contrasts between freedom and tyranny: in Iraq before the war, in Iran, in North Korea... But sometimes, it's not so obvious.free-download motion-DV-Studio
What's so wonderful about Good Bye, Lenin is that it finds the subtle, humorous, even sympathetic way to illustrate that contrast: how a dictatorship can tear apart a marriage and a family and how its victims still live through it, how they cope and love and even laugh. It shows how the damage of a dictatorship can be masked by the courage of its victims. There are no raised fists here, no jackboots, no shots; there's not even any pain apparent on the surface. But it's there, underneath, and it becomes apparent only when freedom draws the contrast. free-download motion-DV-Studio
Testing
... That beautiful word means that Vagablog is working again. Thank you, Mike Rowehl. free-download motion-DV-Studio
Scooby-dooby-doo
: Took the kids to the new Scooby this afternoon. Anything to get a barrel of popcorn.
I am always happy when kiddie-movie-makers throw in babes for the Dads. Some might go for Sarah Michelle Gellar or Alicia Silverstone. But Velma's more my type. free-download motion-DV-Studio
: Somebody in the comments asked about the preview of the next Harry Potter. I'm not a big Harry fan, so I'm not the best correspondent. But the FX looked impressive, a notch above the last movies. What's most notable is that the kids have grown up. This Harry will have some added adolescent sexual tension. free-download motion-DV-Studio
Glub
: Glenn Reynolds blogs with the fishes. In video. free-download motion-DV-Studio
#)&*%#)*$* Real
: Damned Real. Got home late last night and my Treo wouldn't play music via Real; it told me to sync again. This blew up the poor phone. I'm on support with Sprint until 2:15a; things melt-down. It's finally fixed. But the hell of it is that I can't get my precious Vagablog to work; that's how I blog from the road (yes, that's how I blog about Howard Stern from the choir loft at church, heathen that I am). Maybe it's God trying to give me a message but I don't care; I'll make a deal with the devil to get Vagablog working again.
That's it for Real. Their players are just evil.
And that's it for trying to use my phone as an MP3 player. Heck, it already does my phone-email-web-blogging-Palm-camera.
(If there's a Palm/MT/Vagablog geek out there able to help, the error message I get is "Unable to find XML declaration".)free-download motion-DV-Studio
March 26, 2004
Can you be as boring as Kottke?
: There's a new contest memeing its away around blogs: Can you put up a post as boring as Kottke's latest?
The opening bid from Jason: A post about his building's doormat.
To which Rob replies: "All blog entries have now apparently been used up." And he sees that bid and raises it with a post about his new colander.
Never one to be outdone, Michele ups the betting with a post about garbage bags.
Well, I hate to be left out of this game, so lemme tell you about my office:free-download motion-DV-Studio
I hadn't cleaned my office in at least five years. So I had a guy from the building bring up a dumpster and I filled it with with whiteboards that won't erase anymore because the old ideas on them are encrusted with age; expensive brochures passed out by promising-but-now-dead companies at Internet Worlds as far away as Berlin; lawyer letters and contracts for many promising-but-now-dead companies; many promising-but-now-dead Internet magazines; and business cards for many promising-but-now-unemployed Internet executives. My office is now so empty and dusty that it looks as if I, too, am a promising-but-unemployed Internet executive. But I will bring some Pledge from home (unscented only, please) and then I will look employed and efficient again. free-download motion-DV-Studio
Your bid.free-download motion-DV-Studio
The Daily Stern afternoon edition: Creeping FCCism
: The FCC decides to regulate the content of satellite programming. By what frigging authority? Satellite television providers such as DirecTV and the Dish Network will have to follow the same rules for political and children's advertising as over-the-air broadcasters and cable TV operators under regulations announced yesterday.
The rules issued by the Federal Communications Commission require satellite operators to allow political candidates to buy advertising time on their systems and to sell it to them at the lowest rates they offer to commercial customers. Like cable systems, satellite operators have commercial time on the networks they carry that they can sell.
Michael Perko, an official with the FCC's media bureau, said the commission acted now because of the increase in satellite service. The FCC reported in January that 23.7 million Americans received television via satellite, 22% of all households that pay for television. Cable, with 70.5 million households, has 75% of the market. By that rationale, then the FCC should start regulating newspapers and magazines because they're in a lot of homes, too.
Damnit, let's get this straight: The FCC is a two-bit licensing agency and it is not charged with (a) protecting our morals or (b) selecting our content. They try to get away with that on broadcast because of the allegedly limited bandwidth on public airwaves (which is bull these days since there are so many ways to broadcast content). Satellite is not broadcast. But that doesn't stop the creeping FCC. Mark my words: They'll try to find something involving content to regulat on the Internet next. free-download motion-DV-Studio
Small world gets smaller
: Amy Langfield has a great small-blogosphere post here. free-download motion-DV-Studio
The Center for Citizens' Media and journalism
: Harry raises important issues regarding my post yesterday proposing the Center for Citizens' Media. free-download motion-DV-Studio
There is so much to say about the relationship of "journalism" and "citizens' media" that I chose not to get into it in my post yesterday (it was late and what I really wanted to do was jump off of Howard Rheingold's quote -- but that's just an excuse). So let me make a few things clear: free-download motion-DV-Studio
First, citizens' media is journalism. Not an issue, not an argument. It's a new kind of journalism but that's hard to define, for the Jell-O is still warm. free-download motion-DV-Studio
Second, I don't mean to say that citizen journalists need to learn things from big-media journalists or that they should become just like big-media journalists; I hope not, for it is the diversity of viewpoint and voice in citizens' media that I treasure.
But I do believe there are tricks of the trade -- and yes, Fleet Street Blogger, it's a trade or a craft, not a profession and certainly not an art or a science -- that could be useful to those citizen journalists who would want to learn them and so I see value in having the means to teach them.
I start with practical means of protection, such as libel law, but this extends also to things that empower citizen journalists, like teaching them how to take advantage of the Freedom of Information Act. I see value in the creation of an open, online curriculum sharing useful tricks of the trade.
The fringe benefit: It demystifies the priesthood of the journalist. free-download motion-DV-Studio
Third, I do believe that there will be benefit in bringing together big- and little-media: They need to understand the value each brings to society. They should create links that can lead to better information (that is, it leads to big media reading and quoting the citizens now that we, too, have a press). And, I hope, this will show that most practioners of big- and little-media work hard to do the right thing (the cynical assumption that the big "they" are all biased jerks is just as wrong as the snotty assumption that the "they" of weblogs are just blathering loners). I'm not headed for any Hallmark moment; I hope that big- and little-media still argue and check each other, for there is value in that. But I'd rather see them arguing about substance than snot.free-download motion-DV-Studio
In the end, it can be argued easily that big media would benefit more from all this than citizens' media, for it would see that this provides a new source of information and diverse viewpoint and it builds a new relationship to the people formerly known as their audience. But I believe everybody can benefit.free-download motion-DV-Studio
I was going to quote Harry's post on this but it's too seamless so just go read it. This discussion is just what I was hoping for. free-download motion-DV-Studio
: The other thing I meant to mention: What's needed to start such a center? Why, of course, funding. If you know anybody...free-download motion-DV-Studio
: UPDATE: Thinking about this, I may have gone overboard separating citizens' media and journalism because I was agreeing with much of what Harry said.
I disagree with him in part: Citizens' media is journalism. It need not be like the journalism we have known. But it can and should strive to improve its quality and education and discussion can help that. free-download motion-DV-Studio
Oprah, pontificating panderer
: Back when I was the TV critic at TV Guide, I shocked our flack when I refused to appear on Oprah. free-download motion-DV-Studio
I had appeared on Oprah once before, to talk about the fall season, and it was an unpleasant experience. But that wasn't why I refused this time. Instead, this episode of Oprah was supposed to be all about Oprah's own rebirth and reformation as a responsible broadcaster. And I was supposed to be there as a TV critic to bow down before her. I refused.free-download motion-DV-Studio
Remember that Phil Donahue started this form of talk TV. But it was Oprah who trashed it, bringing on people to confess their sins and fight just so they could be on TV (such is the draw of fame that people will fight to be famous even if that only makes them famous for fighting). Then, many went lower than Oprah and when it got out of hand, Oprah suddenly decided that she would stand above it. Nevermind that she started it.free-download motion-DV-Studio
The truth is that ever since then, Oprah still tittilates and sensationalizes but she has to cloak it in a veil of pompous pontification. free-download motion-DV-Studio
The very day that Howard Stern was fined, Oprah broadcast sexual and excretory material that was even more explicit (I've complained and so have many others). But you can bet she won't be fined.free-download motion-DV-Studio
But she's still at it. Yesterday, she had another show about teen sex just so she could get sex on the air. From the transcript: WINFREY: It's casual.
Ms. WEINER: It's really casual. Sex in general is casual.
WINFREY: Like--so you can do it--on the back of the school bus and everybody
knows that you're doing that and that is not a big deal?
Ms. WEINER: Well, you want to know what? Wat--look at what they're watching.
WINFREY: Yeah.
Ms. WEINER: We are watching people having sex on TV every single day.
WINFREY: Yeah, I say that. I say that. Hello.
Ms. WEINER: I mean, like, that's it.
WINFREY: Hello.
Ms. WEINER: That's it.
WINFREY: Yeah.
Ms. WEINER: If that--if that's what they're looking at, that's what they're
doing.
WINFREY: You know what? I said this--I said to--this to some friends of mine
s--who have teen-agers who were so appalled at what was going on with their
teen-agers' life. And I go, `We grew up with "Andy Griffith." We grew up
with "Andy Griffith" and "Mary Tyler Moore."' Just imagine you're 13, 14
years old; from the time that you have been born, look at how sexually
provocative television and the media has been in the past 15 years, and that's
all you've ever known or seen. Hypocrite. Oprah: You can't act as if you don't bear considerable responsibility for this. You brought sex to afternoon TV. Now I don't think you should be fined for that and I don't think you should be taken off the air for that; I just don't watch you. But you're doing nothing different from Howard Stern -- except getting away with it. So cut your holier-than-thou disapproval of sex on the rest of TV. You are the Queen of Trash. free-download motion-DV-Studio
: By the way, I haven't yet received so much as the courtesy of an automated reply to my Oprah complaint. free-download motion-DV-Studio
What is it with Islam?
: The former archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Carey, asks some touch questions about Islam, giving a lecture in Rome and calling it, the Telegraph says, "authoritarian, inflexible and under-achieving." In a speech that will upset sensitive relations between the faiths, he denounced moderate Muslims for failing unequivocally to condemn the "evil" of suicide bombers.
He attacked the "glaring absence" of democracy in Muslim countries, suggested that they had contributed little of major significance to world culture for centuries and criticised the Islamic faith....
He acknowledged that most Muslims were peaceful people who should not be demonised. But he said that terrorist acts such as the September 11 attacks on America and the Madrid bombings raised difficult questions....
Dr Carey said that moderate Muslims must "resist strongly" the taking over of Islam by radical activists "and to express strongly, on behalf of the many millions of their co-religionists, their abhorrence of violence done in the name of Allah".
He said: "We look to them to condemn suicide bombers and terrorists who use Islam as a weapon to destabilise and destroy innocent lives. Sadly, apart from a few courageous examples, very few Muslim leaders condemn clearly and unconditionally the evil of suicide bombers who kill innocent people.
"We need to hear outright condemnation of theologies that state that suicide bombers are martyrs and enter a martyr's reward." ... : See good comments.
: Also, I've just started reading Irshad Manji's The Trouble With Islam. Haven't gotten far enough in to review yet but I like this perspective very much: a call for an Islamic Reformation. free-download motion-DV-Studio
The Daily Stern
: AGAIN: The NY Post reports that another FCC fine against Stern is coming. free-download motion-DV-Studio
: KORN: Stern is in a remix of Korn's anti-Clear-Channel Y'All Want a Single.free-download motion-DV-Studio
: F-WORD EN ESPANOL: A letter to the editor in today NY Daily News: Can anyone explain how the Federal Communications Commission is after Howard Stern instead of Luis Jimenez and Moonshadow Broussard, the hosts of "El Vacilón de la Mañana," the morning show on La Mega 97.9 FM? That's a really trashy and obscene show. Stern is nothing compared to them.
-Alberto Quiñones Well, then, shouldn't Congress and the FCC be translating the seven dirty words into Spanish... and Chinese... and Greek.... and Polish... and... free-download motion-DV-Studio
March 25, 2004
The Center for Citizens' Media
: It's time for me to talk about an initiative I'm trying to start (with NYU, if I'm lucky) to create a Center for Citizens' Media to enable the growth -- and quality -- of this new medium. I'm inspired to tell you about it now because of the Howard Rheingold quotes below.free-download motion-DV-Studio
I have a much longer spiel -- ready to send to any foundation! -- on the mission of the center but in a nutshell, I believe that we can serve four constituencies:free-download motion-DV-Studio
> Citizen journalists can benefit from education in some of the tricks of the trade (e.g., how to avoid libel, how to file freedom of information requests, how to write a killer lede). I'm not saying that bloggers need to be like big-media journalists but I am saying that media must to embrace this new wave of journalists.free-download motion-DV-Studio
> Journalism students can, for the first time in history, think and act like entrepreneurs (see Gawker, Gizmodo, Engadget). They can use weblogs to create a body of work that will get them hired. They must learn how to interact with their publics in new ways. free-download motion-DV-Studio
> Big media needs to learn how to interact with and serve and, most importantly, listen to the citizens formerly known as their audience.free-download motion-DV-Studio
> News sources -- in politics, government, business -- need to learn how to relate to citizens who can now, finally, speak to them. free-download motion-DV-Studio
I have much more to say on the topic but I'm motivated to give you a preview because I just read quotes from Howard (Smart Mobs) Rheingold, who gave a wonderful interview to Business Week on the Internet and politics... and journalism: Rheinhold: I think there's a Darwinian process when you have a large number of people doing it. If 10 million people are publishing their own opinions instead of sitting slack-jawed in front of the tube, that's got to be healthier for the public sphere. The mass media have disempowered people from the process and made them feel disempowered. free-download motion-DV-Studio
Business Week: What could make blogging more useful to the masses?free-download motion-DV-Studio
Rheingold: What's lacking is grounding in good journalism. It's a learned skill that requires some tutelage by people who understand it. I wish that the people in the news business, instead of fearing the bloggers, would help educate them. I'll be teaching a course at NYU -- the first to bridge the department of journalism and ITP, with Jay Rosen and Clay Shirky -- this summer and fall as a first step toward creating this center and serving the needs Howard identifies.
free-download motion-DV-Studio
Best day ever
: VH1's Best Week Ever blog has lots of good, newsy, fun posts today. free-download motion-DV-Studio
Oh, Noam
: Chomsky has a blog.
What's amazing is not its cant -- nothing amazing there -- but how badly it is written. I spoke at a demo of about 20,000 people in Vancouver, very enthusiastic and engaged, and as far as I could tell, inspired to go on. Also to audiences of several thousands, which seemed the same. The pre-war demonstrations were without historical precedent, and surely important. The anniversary demos were also without precedent, and again surely will have an impact. Without precedent? Did you put yourself to sleep through the '60s? Or getaloada this doozie: There are also tactical questions. Those who prefer to ignore the real world are also undermining any hope of reaching any popular constituency. Few are likely to pay attention to someone who approaches them by saying, loud and clear: "I don't care whether you have a slightly better chance to receive health care or to support your elderly mother; or whether there will be a physical environment in which your children might have a decent life; or a world in which children may escape destruction as a result of the violence that is inspired by the Rumsfeld-Wolfowitz-Cheney-etc. crowd, which could become extreme; and on, and on. Repeat: "slightly better." That matters to sensible people, surely the great mass of people who are the potential victims. So those who prefer to ignore the real world are also saying: "please ignore me." And they will achieve that result. This blog should come with aspirin. [via Anil, who calls it "red meat for warbloggers"... if only there were meat there]
free-download motion-DV-Studio
Copy cop
: Reuters is going to use FAST search to find unauthorized uses of its content and violation of its copyright on the Internet and in print. That's a clever use of the technology. But the first time Reuters goes after a blogger for snipping too long a quote -- how long is too long? -- there'll be a storm. The FAST press release here. free-download motion-DV-Studio
Dirty old man
: Just like the good old Clinton days: In the rally at which Dean endorsed Kerry, there were lots of pretty intern-aged enthusiasts behind the podium. free-download motion-DV-Studio
Bloggercon: The business of blogs
: I'm delighted that Dave Winer has asked me to handle a session at Bloggercon (I had a ball playing Oprah -- complete with bad words -- at the last BCon).free-download motion-DV-Studio
The topic: Making blogs a business.free-download motion-DV-Studio
Please start the discussion here and now. In Dave's wise view of these sessions, there are no panels -- hell, in this area, there are no experts (yet) -- and so everybody is on the panel, everybody is an expert, it's all your show. Shape it now. Ask questions. Push the discussion. Let's get to Cambridge ready to rock 'n' roll.free-download motion-DV-Studio
Let's make clear from the very start: Many people don't want their blogs to be a business. Dandy.free-download motion-DV-Studio
But for those who do, I want to see everyone in the room answer two questions (or you tell me what the questions are) in a giant white-board business brainstorming session. My starting list:free-download motion-DV-Studio
1. What is the business potential of blogs? What is their value? Can they sell products? Can they sell subscriptions (to themselves or to other media)? Can they provide consumer opinion and buzz? What about sponsorship and underwriting? How many tip jars can the world support? What about blogging for The Man? Is Google enough to support this medium? Let's sell blogs to ourselves and find all the ways they can be supported financially.free-download motion-DV-Studio
2. What's required to make that happen -- from a business and a technical perspective? Do we need reliable ways to count traffic, demographics, behavior, authority, and so on? Do we need technology for standard ad calls and reporting? Do we need our own PR to sell the value of blogs to marketers? free-download motion-DV-Studio
And we should also ask: What are the booby traps? How should bloggers handle conflict of interest? Do we need to guard against our readers being ripped off by bad advertisers? Do bloggers need to worry about being ripped off? Does it ruin this personal medium to become a business medium? free-download motion-DV-Studio
That's just a start. So keep the discussion going now -- here and on the Bloggercon site.free-download motion-DV-Studio
Hope to see you and hear you in Cambridge!free-download motion-DV-Studio
: Here's the run-up to Jay Rosen's session on journalism at Bloggercon (I'll be there).
: And here's the start of the power law discussion (based on Clay Shirky's writing), to be led by Nick Denton. free-download motion-DV-Studio
: Henry Copeland of Blogads is properly reminding us all that weblogs already make money -- thanks to Blogads (plus Google AdSense). Sorry. I assumed that. No need to sell the sold. Blogads is growing like mad. But I'm also talking about how to get the most out of that -- for example, how do we get more blogs involved and convince more advertisers to use them -- and how to imagine new value and new revenue; let's dream!free-download motion-DV-Studio
WTF
: Damn. I have tried to move every mountain to go to David Isenberg's WTF but those damned mountains won't budge. The agenda looks great. If you're around NY, go! And blog!free-download motion-DV-Studio
Koranized for your protection
: Fleet Street Blogger sends us to an absurd story in the Guardian about the Guardian:
A newsagent cut pictures out of the Guardians he sold this week because it offended him. The picture was of a sword over the Koran.
As FleetStreet points out, what's even more disturbing is that the customers who bought that paper and the paper itself didn't complain but instead tripped over themselves to be PC about it: In a letter published in the paper yesterday, a human rights lawyer, John Rowe QC, described buying his Guardian "in this most tolerant of cities" and finding that it had a front page hole.
He said yesterday: "I bought my Guardian, went to Starbuck's, got my tall latte, settled down, opened the paper - and found I could see Deansgate through it.
"I raced back to the shop and asked 'What have you done here?' and was told 'I have done it to all of them'."
In his letter, Mr Rowe said: "We parted amicably and I quite enjoyed being tolerant." Well, yes, that's where the media world is going: Why not go to a newsstand that matches your sensibilities: We take out all stories Republican [or Democrats] wouldn't like as an addes service for our customers.
Arrrrgh. [Thanks, Nick] free-download motion-DV-Studio
Jeesh
: I happen to have today's Rumsfeld briefing on and the questions are particularly dumb today.
One guy asks how many terrorists are there who want to attack the U.S. Well, how the hell could he know? Hold still, Osama, it's time for the annual American-hating terrorist census.
And then another reporter gets all PC asking whether it was in poor taste for the President to joke about trying to find WMDs at last night's radio and TV correspondents' dinner -- and Rumsfeld wasn't even at the dinner and didn't tell the joke or laugh at it. Oy. Spare me a world in which the secretary of defense has to pass a daily PC cuddly test.free-download motion-DV-Studio
The apology
: Something's not resting well with Richard Clarke's apology for September 11. He said before the commission and families of victims yesterday: i also welcome the hearings because it is finally a forum where I can apologize to the loved ones of the victims of 9/11, to them who are here in the room, to those who are watching on television.
Your government failed you. Those entrusted with protecting you failed you. And I failed you. We tried hard, but that doesn't matter, because we failed. And for that failure, I would ask, once all the facts are out, for your understanding and for your forgiveness. This assumes that government absolutely could have stopped the attack -- and failed. Oh, I wish we could be guaranteed that government absolutely could stop these things but I've seen no proof or assurance of that.
He's practically treating government the way a fundamentalist treats God: an omnipotent being who could and would intervene and fix this if he wanted to. So he's turning government into a bad god -- is that thus a devil? -- who could have stopped these attacks but didn't; it failed.
It may seem like he's quite the mensch by including himself in this apology: "I failed." But he's throwing himself on his rhetorical sword so he can accuse the government -- the administration -- of failing and thus, by its sins of omission and negligence, of practically being complicit in the deaths. I find that offensive; As I said yesterday, it plays into the politicization of 9/11; it makes this about us vs. us instead of us vs. them.
When I first heard Clarke's apology and the start of his testimony, I thought there might be something to listen to here. I haven't said much about Clarke because I haven't yet decided what I think of what he's saying. But I have to say that as his apology sat on the stomach like a bad burrito and came up this morning like a burp, I came to think that his apology was disingenous, melodramatic, and ultimately divisive. free-download motion-DV-Studio
:UPDATES
: David Schuler has more to say on the apology, including this: "There is so much room for the assignment of blame that the very act of attempting to assign blame is frivolous."
: Rex Hammock is mad: Okay, Mr. Clarke. The government that failed those families has now dedicated billions of dollars and hundreds of lives of its courageous military to stamp out those who threaten our shores. In all theaters of battle, young American soldiers and sailors have printed the the words, "We shall never forget" on weapons, vehicles and military aircraft in honor of those who died on 9/11.
Mr. Clarke, what similar level of resitution have you displayed for your failure other than an attempt to cash in on that tragedy with your book promotion? And now, on the graves of those victims, you grandstand an apology to promote its marketing efforts.
So therefore, Mr. Clarke, I suggest you do this: Announce today that ALL PROCEEDS of the book (not just a portion of the profits, but ALL PROCEEDS) will go to one of the funds that have been set up for the families of the victims...or another specific charity that will help give meaning to your disingenous apology. : EVENING UPDATE: Scott Rosenberg responds to the apology: But just reading those words in newspaper reports made me think that the words of the former head of counterterrorism will go down as one of those defining moments in American public life, like the Army-McCarthy hearings' "Have you no decency, sir, at long last" or the Watergate hearings' "What did the president know and when did he know it?"
Because Clarke's words exposed a deep emotional vacuum in the Bush administration's handling of 9/11. Bush and his team won widespread acclaim for their bullhorn-toting, Bible-waving, smart-bomb-dropping reaction to the terror attacks. And each of those responses had its place, accomplished something in the long process of coming to terms with the death and destruction of that day. But the Bush approach, with its macho swagger punctuated by interludes of lower-lip-biting moments of silence for our collective loss, has never fully satisfied the national psyche. Oh, fercrhissake, this is not about feelings! This is about life and death! This is about finding bad guys and killing them before they kill us. Enough with apologies and emotions and psyches. This is war. Let's go win it. free-download motion-DV-Studio
Condemn what?
: Will the U.N. also condemn the Palestinians sending a 14-year-old boy to Israel as a suicide bomber?free-download motion-DV-Studio
The Daily Bob
: Heh.
There's now a Save Bob Edwards site. [via Wonkette]free-download motion-DV-Studio
The Daily Stern
: THE BOSS: Viacom chief and long-time Howard booster Mel Karmazin defends Stern to the Wall Street Journal: "You know, I think he has been a target," Karmazin continued. "If you think about what happened, it was that Janet Jackson happened. I get subpoenaed. They now talk about radio as well as that. Another company canceled Howard's show for no reason other than that they were going to Washington to testify and just didn't seem to have the courage to stand up for programming that they aired. And we absolutely stand up for what Howard is doing." free-download motion-DV-Studio
: SATELLITE ECONOMICS: The LA Times comes a bit late to the Stern-impact-on-satellite story and finds an XM exec negotiating in public, poormouthing about how they can't afford Stern: Hugh Panero, XM Satellite's chief executive, pooh-poohed the possibility, saying he doubted whether XM or Sirius could afford the reported $20 million Stern pulls down a year through his contract with Viacom Inc.'s Infinity Broadcasting.
They might be able to come up with that kind of dough soon, though: XM's and Sirius' stocks are trading near 52-week highs as the number of subscribers and satellite-capable radios keeps increasing. Don't believe the XM guy; he has an audience of one -- Stern's agent -- in mind.
Let's look at the numbers:
I saw a number recently that said that Stern brings in $100 million in radio.
If he went to satellite, let's say he took a quarter of his 8-million-plus listeners with him.
So let's say that 2 million new subscribers come in -- doubling the current total satellite radio customer base -- and that they each pay $10 per month (more for Sirius). That would be $240 million per year. And they would have produced that growth without marketing and subscriber-acquisition costs; Stern will have done that for them.
So even if you cut that in half and it's still more than Stern reportedly produces now.
And it builds the industry. The impact on the stock would be monumental.
And that means that the satellite company could pay Stern in great measure in stock and options.
Oh, they can afford him... if they can build radios fast enough (which, Stern says, is an issue).
The numbers surprised me. His impact could be huge.
Meanwhile, see the AdAge story I quoted yesterday: Broadcast radio will get safer and older and smaller. Satellite will then grow even bigger. And the stock will rise more.
I'm not selling my Sirius stock yet.
MediaDrop's Tom (and my colleague Peter Hauck) wonder about whether Stern could also offer his show to both satellite companies. That could work, though then neither would have an exclusive edge and neither would give him equity. free-download motion-DV-Studio
: MORE ON THE BANDWAGON: Sun-Times columnist and movie critic Richard Roeper comes out for Stern and against the FCC.free-download motion-DV-Studio
: FAME: Choire Sicha is doing radio interview on Stern. OK, I'm jealous. free-download motion-DV-Studio
[Confidential to producers: I'm available for opinions and sound bites.]free-download motion-DV-Studio
: ATTORNEY TO THE STARS: HowardStern.com is linking to Ernie Miller's great pieces on the FCC's insane decisions. free-download motion-DV-Studio
: THE RIGHT TO READ: I had an email conversation with Ernie asking about the rights of the audience in all this and what standing we have in the cases that are sure to follow:
> Do we have a right to listen (which Ernie said is called the "right to read" in legal discussion): That is, can we argue that our First Amendment rights have been violated if the FCC successfully stifles political speech (no matter how it gets there)?
> Do we have a right to a spokesman? If a person speaks for us and he is silenced, does that violate our rights and give us standing?
> Do we have a right to be free of the fear that the government will fine us if we say something that, under its vague regulation, is deemed indecent or profane while we are, say, being interviewed by a radio reporter or yelling something at a broadcast concert or sporting event or calling into a talk-radio show?
It's doubtful that we could file suit against the FCC but we can file friend-of-the-court briefs once suits are filed. And as Ernie said, free speech is a matter of distribution: There's a sender and a receiver and when the rights of one are affected, so are the rights of the other. free-download motion-DV-Studio
: PREVIOUS DAILY STERN POSTS: here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here.
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March 24, 2004
War
: Britt Blaser and I talked about war under the sun in San Diego and he reprises our conversation today after seeing my post, below, on the unseemly side of the 9/11 hearings. Britt writes: I lobbied for this notion that we somehow need to separate one's personal fate from one's actions, that the battle plan must be consistent and smart, not hostage to a few casualties. I believe our nation's battle plan is to live according to the Bill of Rights, even if it costs some of us our lives once in a while....
[He quotes my post below.]
This is where Jeff and I diverge in how to wage war well. Rage hampers your ability to function in combat, and we are in combat. One prevails by respecting the enemy, not in seeing him as inhuman. Further, I'm convinced that no one is soulless, though many on both sides are deluded by fundamentalist leaders and happy to kill in their personal quest for meaning. Just as our vets have been to Viet Nam and met and hugged and wept with their former enemy, someday Iraqis and Yanks will sit down in Baghdad over sweet tea and grieve for the lost days of their youth, seeking to maim each other. In his comments, I replied: We don't disagree and we do disagree.
I certainly believe that the terrorists are soulless -- just as I firmly believe that Hitler and his henchmen were soulless. Not recognizing that -- not recognizing that they can stoop to depths we cannot imagine -- only weakens our defense.
We do agree that we can sit down in Iraq over tea as friends. We can do that today. We liberated the Iraqis from a dictator; we are making friends on the street and online; we have every reason to be friends, especially if we get our act together and help build their democracy and economy.
And I certainly agree, as I said in my post, that there is value in reviewing mistakes so we do not make them again -- but there is no value in fingerpointing at either the Bush or the Clinton administrations for perceived political benefit.
The truth is, as a colleague of mine said today, there is no political benefit in this. If you say that Bush dropped the ball then you have to say that more drastic action was necessary from both Bush and Clinton: We should have invaded Afghanistan long ago on our own, damn the political and international consequences; we should follow the Blair doctrine to preempt terrorism and tyranny before it can attack us and others and thus if we believed that there was the capability of weapons development, we should have invaded Iraq; we should invade North Korea... all that comes out of sniping at Bush for dropping balls.
I am no fan of Bush but I am no fan of turning 9/11 into political taffy.
We disagree about one more thing: I defend the Bill of Rights as strongly as the next patriot and I believe that we do not need to harm the Bill of Rights to defend our nation against terrorism, but we also do not need to be stupid.
I have no objection whatsoever to airlines handing over every bit of personal information they happen to gather about me, for example, if they do so for everyone flying and if we manage to catch the next terrorist. My rights will not have been violated but if I am killed the next time they strike, my rights and those of my children will most certainly have been violated.
We must know our enemy. We must fight our enemy. We must not fight each other as we fight our enemy, united. free-download motion-DV-Studio
Plaxo paranoia
: I'm not a paranoid guy but I never respond to a Plaxo contact-updating request because I just don't know enough about the company. Jason Calacanis reports that this came up at PCForum; Plaxo responded to his questions on their business model in his comments. I still don't trust it. free-download motion-DV-Studio
Terror foiled
: Bomb found and disarmed under French railroad.free-download motion-DV-Studio
Reputation manipulation
: Smart Mobs sends us to RepCheck, a new venture to manage reputations; it "allows users to review, rate and search our database of people's reputations for both business and social purposes."
Now this is frightening.
Sounds like it has the potential to become systematized libel.
Imagine if all the Howard Stern haters trolling in the comments went in there and rated me (don't get any ideas, guys!). Imagine what right-wingers could to do lefties and vice versa. Imagine what competitors could do. Imagine what former lovers could do.
Oh, it sounds cool. But this is another artificial -- and scary -- social network, one that can be used against people. What a sucky idea.
I was going to delve in and see what was there, but I'll be damned if I'll give them my personally identifiable information.
The truth is that the Internet is already a reputation management system for those who know how to use it.
And I find it amazing that the people behind this don't put up their names and don't put up their own "repscores."free-download motion-DV-Studio
As NASA begat Tang, Dean begets social software
: Zack Rosen, who helped create Deanspace, has just set up a new venture to bring the power of groupware to nonprofits and such with software and help. Dan Gillmor reports, quoting Zack (the nephew of proud uncle Jay, by the way): We want to create a much cheaper, open, and powerful option for these kinds of services. The goal is to have a full-time development shop that spearheads projects inside open-source communities working on the applications these organizations need, and a consulting firm that can support the toolsets. This is a much more efficient and productive way to do this kind of development. This is great. The possibilities for this are endless -- and international. free-download motion-DV-Studio
From free to cheap... to free?
: Music can't catch a break. So music was expensive. Then it was free on Napster. Then Napster was killed and it was cheap on Apple. And now it's cheaper at Walmart, which just undercut Apple et al with 88-cent songs. Walmart insists that it's not a loss-leader at that price and that it will make a profit on music (and thus that it's not dumping music on the market, in essence) -- but even if that's true, it's probably true only for Walmart. So, once again, the profitability of music is sliced and the price of music slides back toward zero. free-download motion-DV-Studio
: Of course, good often comes out of disruption and the CBC speculates about the kind of music we'll be listening to in five years, thanks to the age of the download. MIT Technology Review summarizes the questions: Will lowering the barriers of entry to the music market encourage more grassroots participation? Will the ability to issue one song at a time enable musicians to become even more topical, serving, as Chuck D described it, as the black man’s CNN and responding to news events as they happen? Will it increase the global flow of music so that we have access to songs from around the world which might otherwise not make it into the American market? Will the focus on singles, each of which have to stand on their own, decrease the diversity of musical offerings, since there will no longer be the kinds of novelty or experimental songs that used to be called B sides? Will music consumers become better informed and thus more discriminating? Will downloading produces songs that all sound alike or will it produce more mutations, niche markets, and subgenres? What role will blogging play in shaping the flow of popular music in our culture? These are some of the possibilities considered here, along with some tea leaves that we are all trying to read to determine what the future holds for popular music. These are, of course, not the doom and gloom scenarios that are most often being pushed by the record industry itself—and that’s part of the fun! free-download motion-DV-Studio
NPR: Age discrimination?
: NPR is ousting Bob Edwards as the host of its morning show. Time for a change and all that. New role. He's 56 and has been there from the start and has done a good job from the start (no matter what you think of NPR's politics, he's a pro). In the Times story, he's as politic as he can be and his colleagues don't dar call this what it is: Killing the graybeard. I'd expect that from commercial networks (except, in fact, they do leave Andy Rooney Dan Rather in the job long past the time they became bores). But NPR? Tsk-tsk.
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9/11 commissions and books and politicking
: I haven't said much about the current blame game going on over September 11th in books, hearings, and political speeches.
The terrorists came within a matter of yards of killing me.
But I don't blame the Bush or Clinton administrations for that. I blame the terrorists.
Could we have stopped them? Only with some damned lucky breaks. We can't make believe that any system would have guaranteed catching them before the act.
For we have to remember that these are pathologically insane and evil beasts and it's impossible to guess how low they will stoop.
If we were lucky enough to have intelligence inside their devil's cult, then, yes, we might have foiled their plot. But that's obviously hard to do.
If we were lucky enough to have stopped one of them for speeding and locked them up, then we might have foiled their plot. But that's like counting on a lottery ticket.
What matters now is learning the lessons we can learn -- and to that extent, the hearings are valuable -- to protect us as best we can.
But I find the blame game going on now unseemly and divisive and unproductive and distracting and just a little bit tasteless.
I saw people die that day not because of anything we didn't do but because of what a bunch of soulless murderers did do. Let's never forget that.
It's us against them, not us against us.
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The Daily Stern
: PROFANE: Ernie Miller digs into the FCC's f-word decision again and, dig as he might, he still can't find good law, good definitions, good guidance, or good sense: The FCC's new "profane" language doctrine is a mess just waiting to be challenged. The opportunity to embarrass the FCC is there. Which broadcast personality will accept the challenge? : OFF WITH HIS FINGER: Drudge makes a big deal of American Idol judge Simon Cowell scratching his face with his no-no finger and Fox producers going through talmudic torture over whether this was a gesture or a scratch and whether this should have aired or not in this, the day of boobaphobia.
Is the F-finger the same as the F-word to the FCC?
How much more ludicrious can this get? free-download motion-DV-Studio
March 23, 2004
Visa help...
: Hossein Derakhshan, the pioneering Iranian blogger, needs some help or advice so he can get a visa to come from Toronto to Cambridge on April 17 for Bloggercon.
The problem is scheduling: The consulate in Toronto first schedule him for a meeting on April 21 (four days after B'con) and then for April 1 (when Hoder is in Switzerland visiting the family he can't visit in Iran).
So I am going to write letters to the cosulate and probably to a senator's office trying to get help.
Suggestions anyone?
Connections, anyone?free-download motion-DV-Studio
RSS, the history
: Jason Calacanis found a decent summary of the history of RSS from Microsoft. I have no idea whether it's politically correct in the RSS/Atom world (and don't much care); I found it useful (but only since I'm working on implementing more RSS).free-download motion-DV-Studio
The new guy in town
: It's not as if the media business hasn't been waking up to this, but it's significant to note that Google now admits it's a media company.
Google is the ultimate repackager of content in the medium that is all about repackaging.
And, like all media, it's making its money by using that content to attract audience, whom it then delivers to advertisers.
This doesn't cut out the original content creators, of course; Google still links to them. But it changes the way that content creators should be creating that content: They need to get links and Googlejuice to rise in the ranks; they need to write compelling headlines and leads so they are spotted in searches and GoogleNews.free-download motion-DV-Studio
The Daily Stern:
: PURITANISM HURTS PROFITS: Ad Age reports (it's not online yet) that advertisers say the indecent indecency legislation and the FCC's increased puritanism will hurt the entire broadcast industry: ...media buyers are concerned it could hurt broadcasters' ability to compete with cable and satellite media and make it more difficult to reach a mass audience.
"It has the potential of raising the average age of the network TV audience," said Allen Banks, exec VP-North American media director for Publicis Groupe's Saatchi & Saatchi. That is death to the broadcast business. You want to talk about how you want more voices in media? Well, this will only lead to deeper business problems and thus more consolidation. "If there is a big crackdown, it could affect advertising," said Rich Hamilton, CEO of ZenithOptimedia Group. "A certain amount of provocative material is material viewers are interested in watching." : FIGHTING BACK: Mancow Muller, the frighteningly intense shock jock and FoxNews fave, is suing a guy who has filed a bunch of complaints against him with the FCC: The nationally syndicated WKQX-FM (101.1) morning personality is expected to file a $3 million lawsuit in Cook County Circuit Court today against David Edward Smith, the Chicago man whose Citizens for Community Values has lodged 66 complaints about "Mancow's Morning Madhouse" with the Federal Communicatons Commission.
Acting on Smith's complaints, the FCC so far has cited Muller and Q-101's parent, Indianapolis-based Emmis Communications, six times for indecency, resulting in fines totaling $42,000.
Among other claims, the lawsuit will charge Smith with business interference and filing "spurious complaints" with the FCC that are "repetitive, malicious, untrue, and designed merely for the purpose of harassment [and] to cause [Muller] economic ruin." ...
"Although I studied to be a minister, my time of 'turn the other cheek' has now ended. I firmly believe the 'zealots' have done numerous illegal things that will be revealed in the courts. I have garnered a massive war fund and will not quit until my First Amendment right to free speech is restored. I ask for everyone's prayers during this tough time...." : BACKLASH COMING: Expect a backlash against this resurrected puritanism. An ad newsletter notes such a 'lash coming from advertising (pictures here). They call it "shockvertising." free-download motion-DV-Studio
: CLEAR CHANNEL'S POLITICS: USA Today digs into Clear Channels' political contributions today: Clear Channel, rejecting Howard Stern's claims that he was canned for slamming President Bush, says its radio network does not have a political agenda.
But new political contribution data tell a different story about Clear Channel (CCU) executives. They have given $42,200 to Bush, vs. $1,750 to likely Democratic nominee John Kerry in the 2004 race.
What's more, the executives and Clear Channel's political action committee gave 77% of their $334,501 in federal contributions to Republicans. That's a bigger share than any other entertainment company, says the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics.
In contrast, Viacom (VIA) executives and its political action committee gave just 30% of their $545,650 to Republican candidates. Viacom syndicates Stern's show. : THE CHILL WIND SPREADS: Steven Bochco has made some of the best damned shows in the history of TV; he can be credited with bringing in the real golden age of television. But now they're snipping at him, too: For the first time in the show's 11 years, creator Steven Bochco says, the network's censors have breached an agreement that allows him to air the racy material that gives the TV drama its gritty appeal.
Bochco's troubles began soon after Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction" during the Super Bowl halftime show.
Three times since then, Bochco says, ABC has expunged racy scenes from "NYPD Blue," including one that he describes as "a relatively brief, very tasteful sex scene."
An ABC spokeswoman confirmed the changes but said they resulted from a "standard review" by the network's censors. Bochco said he refused to make the changes voluntarily.
"It doesn't mean that I can stop them from doing it," he said. "But it does signal my unwillingness to be a co-conspirator. It's very chilling. It's a little intimidating, and it's frustrating." : PREVIOUS DAILY STERN POSTS: here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here.
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March 22, 2004
Two views
: Two correspondents from Blogging the President went to the Politics Online Conference. Stirling Newberry says it was the place to be. Ellen Dana Nagler says it was a snoozer filled with laptopless peple who just wanted to use the Internet to raise bucks. free-download motion-DV-Studio
Irony noted
: Prof. Larry Lessig's new book, Free Culture. $24.95.
But it will be free online next week.free-download motion-DV-Studio
: And give the good professor plenty of credit for linking to this review from Stephen Manes at Forbes (whose email address is, quite appropriately, at cranky.com): Man the barricades for your right to swipe The Simpsons! According to Stanford law professor and media darling Lawrence Lessig, a "movement must begin in the streets" to fight a corrupt Congress, overconcentrated media and an overpriced legal system conspiring to develop "a ‘get permission to cut and paste' world that is a creator's nightmare."
That's the gist of Lessig's inflammatory new screed, Free Culture: How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture and Control Creativity.... A more honest title? Freeloader Culture: A Manifesto for Stealing Intellectual Property.
"There has never been a time in our history when more of our ‘culture' was as ‘owned' as it is now," Lessig huffs. Huh? In the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s a handful of companies exerted ironclad control over the movie, radio and record businesses; Xeroxes and tape recorders were nonexistent. Though "cut and paste" was limited to scrapbooks, creators of all stripes somehow managed to flourish.
Contrary to Lessig's rants, today's technology has made creators freer than ever to devise and distribute original works. But technology has also given consumers powerful weapons of mass reproduction with strong potential for abuse. The intellectual property issue of our time is how to balance the rights of creators and consumers. : It looks like I may be lucky enough to go to a law session in a month where Lessig will be teaching. If he has noticed my sniping at him on these "pages" and growls, I will say just one thing: "I'm too smart to debate you, Professor." free-download motion-DV-Studio
To the tune of: Those Were The Days, My Friend
: Jerry Colonna -- VC, former partner of VC blogger Fred Wilson -- had a wonderful tale the other day about running into a fellow VC from those good old daysand Tripod founder , Bo Peabody (with whom I served on the board of Plastic.com), and the memories it brought back: I remember when we closed the deal to sell Geocities to Yahoo for more than $3.5 billion. I remember news of the deal began to leak out and the Times’ Saul Hansell called me at home and said, in a bid to get confirmation of the yet-to-be-announced deal, “Why did you sell out? Don’t you believe in the business model?”
All I could say was, “How did you get this number?” and “Good night, Saul.” But I wanted to say: Ford just bought Volvo, you friggin’ idiot, for just less than twice this price. Holy crap, Saul, we’d be stupid not to take this deal! ...
...and I’m tapping on the keyboard, linked wirelessly to my T-Mobile Hotspot account, and damn if I’m not posting to my blog as we speak…
...and then the steroids really kick in; the ideas for new businesses, improved businesses, better versions of existing businesses bubble up and we’re playing a game of intellectual one-upmanship, and “Can you imagine this?” and “No. No. No. This is the way it should be…”
...and we both lean back and smile. We've seen this play before and we see each other in the other.
Leaving, I walk through Madison Square Park:
Snow is falling thickly and I watch a pair of German tourists taking shots of the Flatiron Building. Everybody wants to be Stieglitz:
The Flatiron Building stings; during the boom, Fred and I were posed far too often in front of the building. “Princes” we were called. We never wanted to be hailed; we only wanted to change the world. Start writing the movie script now. free-download motion-DV-Studio
Into the nest
: Lt. Smash, a veteran of the Iraq war, goes to the anti-war demonstrations and interviews the demonstrators. Great reading, through his eyes. No, I decided to go to the protest because I wanted to learn what this anti-war movement is all about. Why were these people so vehemently opposed to the overthrow of a brutal dictator, and the liberation of 25 million people from under the yoke of tyranny? So I messed up my hair, didn’t bother to shave, threw on some dirty jeans and a wrinkled shirt, and headed down to Balboa Park. free-download motion-DV-Studio
The Daily Oprah
: Scared ya, didn't I?
But seriously, folks....
I just sent the letter below to Michael Powell at the FCC.
We should make a Freedom of Information request in about a week to see how many Oprah complaints they have vs. Stern complaints.free-download motion-DV-Studio
Witness
: Adam Curry on the changes he saw in Iraq: I've seen first hand what work is being done in Iraq by the dutch troops, and although a different and much less hostile region than near Bagdad, I spoke to enough iraqi citizens in the province of Al Mutana to know that there is a great appreciation for the coalition ending Saddam's regime and for facilitating the rebuilding of their country. Assuming there is indeed a void that has been created, folks certainly are happier. Not necessarily worse off. free-download motion-DV-Studio
Getting closer
: Tom sends us to a new RSS reader called Pluck that operates inside Internet Explorer. I've been waiting for a reader that would do that. I don't ever want anything clogging up my Outlook more than it's already clogged; I find a separate ap awkward; I find a web-served reader limited. What I really want is to be able to do everything -- see what's update; subscribe; read; link -- inside my browser.
Pluck is a good start. But it has limitations. They foolishly came out without the ability to read OPML lists of feeds exported from other RSS readers (thus it's near impossible to switch). I did as they said and put my file in the right folder; still didn't work.
Because they trick the browser into looking at a Pluck page that, in turn, pulls up RSS files and web pages, it appears impossible to bookmark anything you've viewed through Pluck; that's a big weakness.
All in all, what Pluck really does, based on a quick evaluation, is show the power of adding RSS to Internet Explorer.
When are you going to get around to it, Microsoft?free-download motion-DV-Studio
: UPDATE: UNINSTALLED: I couldn't even find the place to put OPML files (and went twice to their forums to follow their inaccurate instructions). Without that, this is useless to me. Pluck got one chance to win me over. They lost it. Uninstalled. I plucked Pluck. free-download motion-DV-Studio
Hide your head
: The Scotsman talks to former bloggers to ask why they gave up their blogs and refers to them all anonymously. The shame. The shame. free-download motion-DV-Studio
The inside angle
MSNBC anchor Brian Williams is strip-searched -- body-cavity, even. [via IWantMedia]
: And here's the oops-it-was-a-joke correction. free-download motion-DV-Studio
Reverse publishing, we call it
: Nettavisen -- a very good online-only newspaper in Norway (they started Netzeitung, of which I'm a big fan) -- just pulled a very cool one-time marketing ploy: They printed a free and very wowy print edition of their online content to show off all the wonders awaiting readers online. PDF of the print paper here. [via E-Media Tidbits]free-download motion-DV-Studio
First, delink the lawyers
: Glenn Reynolds is back with the sage observation (from a lawyer) that it doesn't look too productive to send lawyers gunning for bloggers. Does this mean that it's always a mistake to send lawyers after bloggers? I suppose not. But I have to say that so far that's how it looks. The ill-fated Luskin / Atrios dispute, the New York Times / National Debate facedown, and now this [the case of John Gray and his degrees] all suggest that sometimes it's better just to let minor things go by than to issue threats that give the subject matter a much higher profile than it otherwise would have had. At the very least, a polite message pointing out the error, and requesting a correction without threats and bluster, is likely to do more good, and generate far less blowback. Bloggers are, in my experience, quite willing to correct errors of fact, but not impressed with threats and bluster. Still, there will be blusterers who will threaten. I still want to see all the blogging lawyers -- and there are many -- band together to offer education and support (about a legal aid society for bloggers that will at least respond to lawyer letters with lawyer letters on your behalf?). free-download motion-DV-Studio
New, improved
: The new designer-blue Technorati is up (I'd been using the beta for a few weeks). It's nice: cleaner with some new features Dave Sifry outlines here.free-download motion-DV-Studio
: In my regular ego checks to see how I rank on the Top 100, I have found this puzzling trend: The number of inbound blogs linking to me keeps going up, but my rank stays essentially the same of late (and I'm quite delighted with that rank, I should add) because everybody's numbers are rising: The tide raises all boats. I'll think I can beat Gawker if I hit, say, 1200 blogs and then we both get more and so does everybody above us.
So the question: Is this because Technorati is getting more and more blogs (11k per day) and the have the same links other blogs have? Is this a viral effect: links beget links and they do it proportionately?
Just curious.free-download motion-DV-Studio
Merci (I think)
: Wish I hadn't quit French after sixth grade. Then I'd be able to read this post and know whether they mean it when they describe me as un blogueur ultra-célèbre et populaire aux Etats-Unis -- or whether, my luck, this is an example of French irony.free-download motion-DV-Studio
MT, RSS and drafts
: Does Movable Type publish draft posts in RSS feeds?
I thought not (and even tested that once when I caught some really odd things on Nick Denton's RSS feed).
But this morning, Amy Langfield read the post below, which linked to her, on RSS via Bloglines. But I hadn't posted it yet.
I often write drafts of unfinished posts (which I would not want published!) or I use a draft to cut-and-paste quotes for a later post or I will confess that I occasionally write posts the night before and post them the next morning (makes me look so damned efficient).
Anybody know what happens with drafts, MT, and RSS?free-download motion-DV-Studio
Is that your ego ringing?
: All the time, I'm on the street and hear somebody else's phone ring and I check mine (even though I should know it's not my ring). Ego calling.
This morning I was listening to (surprise! surprise) Howard Stern and Courtney Love called his cell phone, which rang on the air. Howard has a Treo. I have a Treo. I grabbed my phone. I thought it was mine ringing.
I think that's pathetic, but I'm not sure.free-download motion-DV-Studio
Type A tax
: You think it's easy being a Type A? Well, it's not.
So this morning, I was driving my kid to school with a project too big for the bus (in their minds, kids have standards for carry-on baggage stricter than the airlines') and I needed (well, "needed" is pushing it) to go to Starbucks to get my coffee and who-know-how-old scone.
My kids hate it when I go to Starbucks (and my wife eggs them on) and so it's my fault when they're slow.
I run in this morning with not a minute to spare and, damn, I see a slow guy on the register. The slow guys are all the same: They have the look of "retired" corporate vice-presidents. Post Peter Principle. These are guys who had secretaries to run their lives for years and now they can't chew gum and run a register at the same time.
I'm crazed. And it doesn't help that everybody in front of me is putting in orders harder to make than weapons of mass destruction. It also doesn't help that they ran out of coffee. Hey, fools, it's Starbucks! It's your whole job: making coffee. How can you run out?
Drip. Drip. Drip. Crazed. I'm crazed.
I have my money in my hands. I know how much the coffee and scone and Times costs: $4.66. I get my coffee in hand and shove the money at the VP of slow and dash out, figuring that I'd just tipped him 34 cents for slow service.
I get my kid to school on time. Life is fine.
And then, a mile later, in traffic -- crazed again -- I realize: I didn't hand him $5. I handed him $10. I gave the Slowman a $5.34 tip for being slow.
Now I'm really crazed.
You'll be glad to know that I drink decaf. free-download motion-DV-Studio
Dumb mobs
: Amy Langfield is also offended by Rev. Billy's nonsensical and stupid use of the sacred ground of the World Trade Center for his event. Amy and I are both in favor of the First Amendment and wouldn't stop him. But because of the First Amendment, we're both free to think he's an utter twit. free-download motion-DV-Studio
The Daily Stern
: FINALLY, THE BANDWAGON FILLS UP: Frank Rich sums it all up in the Sunday NY Times: f we lived in Afghanistan under the Taliban, perhaps it might make sense that Janet Jackson's breast (not even the matched set!) would lead to one of the most hysterical outbreaks of Puritanism in recent, even not-so-recent, American history. So what gives? : IT SPREADS: The FTC -- apparently jealous of all the attention the FCC is getting -- is getting into the business of regulating media and speech, aka censorship. On the official Federal Trade Commission site, they announce: The Federal Trade Commission has expanded its consumer complaint handling system to categorize and track complaints about media violence, including complaints about the advertising, marketing, and sale of violent movies, electronic games (including video games), and music. The expanded complaint system, implemented in response to Congressional directives, will enable the Commission to track consumer complaints about media violence and identify issues of particular concern to consumers. Another line. Who draws it. And where do they draw it?
I might just complain that Mel Gibson didn't adequately advertise the extent of the violence of The Passion and masqueraded an offensively violent film as religion, which is downright blasphemous, which would be profane, which would make it a matter now for the FCC, eh?
Absurd? Well who's to say what's absurd and what's obscene (and what's violent)? free-download motion-DV-Studio
: Jack Balkin joins in with Yale Law School colleague Ernie Miller to marvel at the FCC's expansion of its authority in its ruling against the F-word last week. Says Jack: Of course, any decision to expand broadcast profanity to include hate speech would be highly politically charged, and therefore is likely to lead to accusations of political favoritism and censorship on the part of the FCC. But the decision to punish the F-world but not the N-word is itself hardly politically neutral.... My advice to the FCC would be to stop now before they completely f*** things up. free-download motion-DV-Studio
: PREVIOUS DAILY STERN POSTS: here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here.
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The Daily Stern: A complaint to the FCC
: I sat down and wrote a letter to Michael Powell, head of the FCC, to see how easy it would be to use the FCC's own words to argue that if they fine Howard Stern, they must fine Oprah Winfrey. Piece of cake. Not sure I'll send it, though; I don't really want to stoke the FCC's stove with complaints. But you can send it if you want. Powell's address is Michael.Powell@fcc.gov. The letter: Mr. Michael Powell:free-download motion-DV-Studio
I write to file a complaint against the Oprah Winfrey Show that aired across the nation on Thursday, March 18, 2004 with explicit sexual and excretory references.free-download motion-DV-Studio
Let me make clear that I strongly oppose the FCC and government attempting to regulate speech; it is, I firmly believe, a violation of the First Amendment. I consequently strongly oppose the FCC's imposition of fines against the Howard Stern Show on Thursday, March 18. On the same matter of principle, I also would oppose the imposition of fines against the Oprah Winfrey Show.free-download motion-DV-Studio
However, what was said on the Winfrey show -- on the very same day that you imposed fines against Stern -- is quite equivalent. If you fine Stern, it seems clear that you must fine Winfrey. If you do not fine Winfrey, then it seems equally clear that you must rescind the fines against Stern. The speech is virtually identical. The only difference is the speaker. free-download motion-DV-Studio
Please note these excerpts from the transcipt of the Winfrey show:
Winfrey promotes the segment in question with the specific references to the sexual and excretory language, clearly demonstrating that it was planned and not accidental:free-download motion-DV-Studio
WINFREY: If your child said they had their salad tossed or was going to a rainbow party, would you know what they meant? The secret language of teens when we come back...free-download motion-DV-Studio
In the segment in question, the guest speaking is Michelle Burford of Winfrey's own magazine, O.free-download motion-DV-Studio
Ms. BURFORD: Salad-tossing. I'm thinking cucumbers, lettuce, tomatoes. OK? I am definitely not hip.free-download motion-DV-Studio
WINFREY: OK--so--OK, so what is a salad toss?free-download motion-DV-Studio
Ms. BURFORD: OK, a tossed salad is--get ready; hold on to your underwear for this one--oral anal sex. So oral sex to the anus is what tossed salad is. Hi, Mom. OK. A rainbow party is an oral sex party. It's a gathering where oral sex is performed. And a--rainbow comes from--all of the girls put on lipstick and each one puts her mouth around the penis of the gentleman or gentlemen who are there to receive favors and makes a mark in a different place on the penis, hence, the term rainbow. So...free-download motion-DV-Studio
And later in the show, Winfrey returns to the subjects at issue.free-download motion-DV-Studio
Ms. BURFORD: And if suddenly your kids want to make salad all the time, you should be wondering. OK.free-download motion-DV-Studio
WINFREY: Yeah. OK. And boo--booty call is pretty common, right?free-download motion-DV-Studio
And again:free-download motion-DV-Studio
WINFREY: Are rainbow parties pretty common?free-download motion-DV-Studio
Ms. BURFORD: I think so. At least among the 50 girls that I talked to, this was--this was pervasive.free-download motion-DV-Studio
Now let us take this speech and put it to the tests to which you put the speech on the Stern Show. Quoting from your FCC ruling against Stern:free-download motion-DV-Studio
"The Commission defines indecent speech as language that, in context, depicts or describes sexual or excretory activities or organs in terms patently offensive as measured by contemporary community standards for the broadcast medium.free-download motion-DV-Studio
"Indecency findings involve at least two fundamental determinations. First, the material alleged to be indecent must fall within the subject matter scope of our indecency definition—that is, the material must describe or depict sexual or excretory organs or activities. . . . Second, the broadcast must be patently offensive as measured by contemporary community standards for the broadcast medium."free-download motion-DV-Studio
If the speech on the Stern Show passes this test, then certainly the speech on the Winfrey show does: "portaying sexual and excretory activities or organs in terms patently offensive." But if the Winfrey show does not, the Stern show does not.free-download motion-DV-Studio
Your ruling said that the Stern show material at issue "clearly describes named sexual practices and also describes features of an excretory organ." The same can be said of the material at issue from the Winfrey show.free-download motion-DV-Studio
Your ruling says that context matters: "Three principal factors are significant to this contextual analysis: (1) the explicitness or graphic nature of the description; (2) whether the material dwells on or repeats at length descriptions of sexual or excretory organs or activities; and (3) whether the material appears to pander or is used to titillate or shock."free-download motion-DV-Studio
First, the Winfrey speech was quite explicit. Second, the host and guest dwelled on these activities, even promoting the subjects and returning to them. Third, considering that the subjects were promoted and brought up again and considering the tone of the discussion -- almost whooping it up -- and the explicitness of the speech, it seems aimed at pandering, titillating, or most certainly shocking.free-download motion-DV-Studio
Further, this speech occurred in most if not all markets between the hours of 6 a.m and 10 p.m. In fact, in most markets, this occurred in the afternoon, when children are less likely to be supervised than in the early morning.free-download motion-DV-Studio
Once again, I oppose the regulation of speech by the government and the FCC. But I at least expect uniform enforcement of standards. free-download motion-DV-Studio
If you fine Stern, fine Winfrey. If you do not fine Winfrey, do not fine Stern. I say fine neither.free-download motion-DV-Studio
So it seems my complaint is actually against the FCC.free-download motion-DV-Studio
Sincerely, free-download motion-DV-Studio
March 21, 2004
Comment on comments
: The discussion on SixApart's proposed cross-site comment system continues here and here at Idly.org.
: More here at John's.
: Haiko Hebig has some issues here; and SixApart's Ben Trott answers him in the comments.
: Jay Allen says it replaces the MT Blacklist spam-fighting plug-in. free-download motion-DV-Studio
A challenge: How blogs can build democracy
: The most important thing blogging companies can do to change the world and build democracy is to translate their tools into (this is my order of preference) Arabic, Chinese, Persian, Russian, other Asian languages, other Eastern European languages -- for these are the parts of the world where the people need a voice to be heard. free-download motion-DV-Studio
When I saw Loic Le Meur at ETech, I pushed him on this idea -- because his company was already international -- and he got excited about it. Now Loic is the agent for SixApart in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (see the post directly below) and so I throw out to challenge to his new partners -- since they are making their company international -- and to their investor -- who understands the power citizens media bring to emerging democracies -- and to to other blogging companies.free-download motion-DV-Studio
I will never tire of telling the story of how one man, Hossein Derakhshan, aka Hoder, changed the world with one simple page that told Iranians how to use Blogger and how to post in Persian. Two years after creating those instructions, there are an estimated 100,000 Iranian blogs; the Iranian vice-president blogs; the Iranian president acknowledges them as a force; and Hoder and his cohort Pedram are working on even more amazing things. All this from one Johnny Appleseed of citizens' media and democracy. free-download motion-DV-Studio
I will also never tire of telling the story of what a 24-year-old dentist in Baghad, Zeyad, and his friends are accomplishing in Iraq. Zeyad reports on an event ignored by major media; it's picked up in a U.S. magazine read in the White House; and this week a major administration power quotes him and another of the bloggers he recruited. Power to the people.free-download motion-DV-Studio
But imagine what Zeyad and Hoder and their counterparts in China and African nations -- and, we can only hope, closed societies like North Korea -- could do if the tools of citizens' media were available in their native languages.free-download motion-DV-Studio
It's not as if this is without business benefit; I see lots of ads on Persian portals.
But these blogging companies should not have to bear the cost of this development on their own. They should get government grants -- how better to help build nations and democracies -- and foundation grants. And I'd contribute to a fund drive for this cause, wouldn't you?free-download motion-DV-Studio
I learned from Zeyad that it doesn't take much more than one person with something to say to make citizens' media work in a new land. But we can help and we should. free-download motion-DV-Studio
SixApart's empire grows
: Loic Le Meur just made the big announcement about which he has been hinting: His French blogging company, UBlog, has become exclusive agent for SixApart -- Movable Type and TypePad -- in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.
SixApart recently licensed its software to Japan's NTT.
All of this, of course, has the fine hand of SixApart investor and angel in many senses of the word, Joi Ito.
TypePad is growing its linguistic base. It's available in French and Spanish; German and Dutch are next. (See the next post above.)
Loic says UBlog will continue to distribute its free product in Europe and will offer upgrades to its current customers.
So we have Blogger now part of Google with its own business plan: Getting targeted pageviews for targeted ads.
And we have SixApart as a still-independent company with its own business plan: Licensing software and services in the blogging world.
And there are other, smaller players: Radio (big in education, with Salon, and elsewhere); 20six (another European player), a few enterprise business players. And Steve Hall reminds me not to forget the huge community-blogging tools: Livewire, Xanga, et al. Meanwhile, AOL's blogging effort has not exactly taken over the world (I could tell them why but why bother). The portals and media companies have been generally clueless in this and probably should be; this is a grassroots media movement of the people and putting the tools in the hands of the people is what it's all about.
Where this all shakes out is too soon to tell. New players could still enter (blogging software isn't that complicated). Big companies could still buy existing players (now is the time to get into this).
And the field of blogging will grow as this functionality is used for everything from audio to video to corporate communications to family shopping lists.
But all players will have to keep in mind that more than with browsers or HTML or media players or any Internet technology, the practioners of this technology feel a real proprietary interest and responsibility for it; the best player will make sure to listen to bloggers and give them what they want; that will be the secret to success.free-download motion-DV-Studio
The Davester
: David Weinberger says bloggers have changed his name. He has always been David but half the time, bloggers call him Dave. (I checked my archives and I was guilty of this about 10 percent of the time.) Not that David minds; he's a nice guy. But it does demonstrate the familiarity this medium breeds. free-download motion-DV-Studio
The Daily Stern
: LA TIMES WORRIES: An LA Times editorial frets that the indecent indecency bills zooming through Congress are unconstitutional: Washington cannot address a key reason why vulgarity too often reigns on radio and television: because it sells. Don't like shock jock Howard Stern? Don't listen to the show. The government's current alternative is scarier than anything the deliberately provocative Stern could muster.
The pending Senate bill is a companion to chilling legislation recently passed in the House of Representatives that wrongly would put most of the policing burden on performers, raising fines from $11,000 to $500,000 for an initial indecency violation, regardless of their ability to pay, and removing earlier requirements that they first be issued a warning citation.
The top fine against them is nearly double the $275,000 that the Senate bill would permit the FCC to fine broadcasters for an initial indecency violation.
The bill's draconian provisions against performers raise serious 1st Amendment free-speech guarantees, because even "indecent" speech has legal protection. However, even if the legislation were constitutional, the FCC's past decisions demonstrate that it does not enforce its rules in any common-sense context....
The FCC's recent enforcement of indecency laws is no less arbitrary. A discussion by Stern about raunchy sex practices draws tens of thousands of dollars in fines; a similar discussion on an afternoon TV talk show draws nothing. Wimps. That's Oprah. Oprah Winfrey. free-download motion-DV-Studio
: BUST OPRAH: Joe Territo -- who filed a formal complaint with the FCC against Oprah -- shows us a clueless letter from Dianne Feinstein trying (typical for her) to have it both ways: in favor of censorship and the First Amendment at the same time. That's a Constitutional oxymoron. free-download motion-DV-Studio
: HENCEFORTH THE "F-WORD" SHALL BE KNOWN AS THE "-WORD": Barney Lerten passes on this from The Well: FCC: TERM "F-WORD" ITSELF TO BE BANNED
Will Examine Other Euphemisms, Slang Terms, and "Code Words"
WASHINGTON (Plausible News Service) -- The Federal Communications
Commission, as part of its ongoing crackdown on obscenity following the
Janet Jackson Super Bowl debacle, has announced that the very term
"F-word," which is used to refer to an obscene word for the sexual act,
will be banned from all broadcast media beginning July 1.
"Everybody knows what 'F-word' means," said FCC Chairman Michael
Powell, describing the new regulations to the Congressional
Subcommittee on Moral Purity chaired by Rep. Henry Hyde (R-IL). "So
saying 'F-word' should be subject to the same kinds of sanctions as
saying -- well, you know."
Discussion among the Congresspeople present soon led to other
concerns. "Well, what about when people use words like 'frigging'?"
asked Rep. Walter Jones (R-NC).... : PREVIOUS DAILY STERN POSTS: here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here.
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March 20, 2004
Strategize
: Jay Rosen rants against "strategy news." I would not say it's their motivation (although some would) but it is definitely a consequence of their method: journalists doing strategy stories get to be more evaluative, more like critics at a performance. They can bring in more knowledge on their own authority, and show how well they understand the game. They are "allowed" more room by their own codes
These are the seductions of the form, which gets the journalist to identify, not with the candidate, but with the theatre of strategy itself, where there is an audience of cognoscenti, and the players discuss with that audience the bamboozlement of another, larger audience--the voters--who are outside the theatre, a "them," not an us. It comes out of the press' desire to seem inside and ahead even if it's not substance they're reporting.
It's also a part of the tiresome sermonizing formula of news coverage. A good sermon, the saw says, follows a standard structure: it tells 'em what you're going to tell 'em, then tells 'em, then tells 'em what you've told 'em.
News coverage, by comparison, wants to tell you what's going to happen and then tell you it's happening and then tell you it happened -- making news repetitive, predictable, and dull... and not necessarily informative. I remember when Bush announced his space plan we were buried in previews, then reports, then analyses. The story dragged out for two weeks when it should have lasted two days.
Campaigns take that sermonizing structure and add big buckets of bull. free-download motion-DV-Studio
Olympic terror fears
: The head of the British Olympic effort is threatening to pull out unless security for athletes is guaranteed in the face of terror fears.
The Scotsman says there is "private speculation" that America will pull out, too. free-download motion-DV-Studio
: Meanwhile, the Observer reports that athletes are getting 24-hour guards.
free-download motion-DV-Studio
The foolproof voting machine
: Go see Florida's new voting machine at IT&W. Really, go see. free-download motion-DV-Studio
It was not a war
: Iraqi blogger Mohammed says today: Yes, it was not a war. Let everyone and especially the pacifists and all who opposed the coalition that what happened was an operation to free the Iraqi people and eliminate a criminal gang that does not represent any body but itself and its narrow interests and that pauses a serious danger on our country and the others.
That was not a confrontation between two nations nor it was a conflict between different convictions, it was an operation to excise a malignant tumor that was about to destroy everything. : And fellow Iraqi blogger Ays lectures the antiwar protestors: It’s very cozy and comfortable to drink the tea in the morning, getting out of your first-class houses, driving your fancy cars, speaking loudly against your governments, criticizing your prime ministers and presidents, saying “ I want this thing”, “ I don’t agree on this decision”, “ I hate Blair and Bush”…..etc.
Look you coddled pampered people… why don’t you want us to do what you’re doing now ? why don’t you want us to live like you ?...
Back to you ‘ protestors’, last year my salary was 1.5$, last year my parents were about to go mad cause we were almost broke, last year I had to obey the mean and disgusting orders of Saddam’s officers cause I had to join the conscription, last year I couldn’t watch what’s happening now on the TV cause I used to watch SH laughing at us, last year I couldn’t write what I’m writing now, last year thousands were being executed, last year hundreds of doctors, engineers and educated people were being arrested and tortured cause they dared to try to travel ! last year…………………………….
Now, what do you think? Just give me a way to get all the above without a war. : River, of course, has a different perspective. free-download motion-DV-Studio
: Zeyad was close to the Basra bombing. free-download motion-DV-Studio
The blogging ascetic
: Halley reveals her ascetic lifestyle, which makes Joe Territo feel like shameful shlub.
And what's cool is that these happen to be friends of mine from utterly separate universes and they meet via blog posts. free-download motion-DV-Studio
Dateline: Heaven
: Atrios is having a quite proper bit of fun digging into the site of the World Journalism Institute, whose mission is: There is one primary reason why the World Journalism Institute should be committed to the education of young journalists: it comes directly from the need to be faithful to the Christian example of accurately reporting (e.g., being reliable eyewitnesses) the work of God in today's world. Now look at the faculty and you find all kinds of people -- or organizations -- who should know better. Says Atrios: Let's see. First, we have Roy Rivenburg, an LA Times staff writer who just wrote a wonderful article about how lots and lots of people really really think gay people shouldn't marry.
Then we have NPR's religion correspondent Barbara Bradley Hagerty who regularly reports on hot button social issues....
Then there's David Cho, a metro reporter for the Washington Post who covers local religion issues. This guy likes to recycle his own story ideas. Note how he likes to contrast "christian" and "religious" with "gay."
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Punchline of the year
: Yasser Arafat sees Mel Gibson's The Passion and decrees it is "not anti-Semitic."
Oh. Well, by his definition that means that he didn't see Gibson bombing hundreds of innocent Jews.free-download motion-DV-Studio
: Oh, it gets even worse: Yasser Arafat watched Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ on Saturday, and afterward a top aide compared Jesus' pain during crucifixion to the suffering of Palestinians in the conflict with Israel.
Nabil Abu Rudeneh, one of Arafat's closest advisers, watched the film along with the veteran Palestinian leader and a group of American and European Christians and Palestinian Muslim clerics.
"The Palestinians are still daily being exposed to the kind of pain Jesus was exposed to during his crucifixion," Abu Rudeneh said in a statement after he viewed the movie. Wow, they manage to insult both Jews and Christians. free-download motion-DV-Studio
Do something for Iraq
: Harry's Place marks the one-year anniversary of the war by giving us concrete ways to do something for Iraqis. Go here and scroll UP. free-download motion-DV-Studio
Comment
: SixApart announces TypeKey, a service that lets you register once and use that registration across any blog that uses the service. I think this is a good idea both because it's more convenient for posters and because I've found in my experience with forums that when people invest in an identity, they are usually less likely to act naughty or nasty. A few questions:
> Does this require verification of an email address?
> What happens when a blogger and TypeKey get a subpoena trying to determine a commenter's identity?
> Can we set it up so that readers can view only comments that have an identity (call it the troll filter)?
> Is this a good first step to creating distributed blogging (that is, on my blog, let me link to or incorporate any comments I made on others' blogs)?
> Will my TypeKey profile page link to all my comments? Does it enable a sort of trackback? Can I then search and look for all the comments made by this commenter?
> Will this work with nonblog applications -- e.g., Amazon reviews, the forums on my day-job sites, etc.?
> Forgot to ask the obvious: I assume that a blog could make use of this optional -- that is, some comments would be signed, others not.
> And how will it work for a blogger to ban an abusive commenter?
Just asking.free-download motion-DV-Studio
: See a very good comment on comments in the comments from SixApart founder Mena Trott. free-download motion-DV-Studio
: Lots of good discussion in the comments.free-download motion-DV-Studio
: Winer's questions. free-download motion-DV-Studio
The Daily Stern
: BUST OPRAH: Want to have some fun? Go to the handy-dandy FCC-complaint page at the frightening Brent Bozell's site and file a complaint against Oprah Winfrey for the indecent and patently offensive discussion of sex acts and excretory acts on her show Thursday -- a discussion that was exactly like the discussion for which Howard Stern was also fined on Thursday. (Details below.)
Now, of course, I'm against fining Oprah just as I'm against fining Howard. But that's just why we need to force the point: Force the FCC to consistently enforce its regulations and go after this self-righteous TV queen. And, for added bonus points of fun, use the tool of this particular nanny organization against itself, to demontrate the absurdity of all this.
The complaint page tells you the standards you must meet:
1. An average person, applying contemporary community standards, must find that the material, as a whole, appeals to the prurient (arousing lustful feelings) interest;
So make sure you say how Oprah show turned you on!
The material must depict or describe, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by applicable law; and
So quote from my post below.
The material, taken as a whole, must lack serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.
Well, hell, it's Oprah. Isn't that obvious?free-download motion-DV-Studio
NO STRIPPERS AT THIS PARTY: The National Association of Broadcasters has called a "Summit on Responsible Programming" in Washington on March 31.
They're keeping the press out "in order to encourage open and candid dialogue."
Oh, please, I do hope that there's a broadcasting blogger there to report on that "dialogue."
Now it's a fine thing to talk about what is responsible programming.
But in this case, they're not inviting anyone who's actually going to have a controversial view of that -- and I don't mean just dirty words, I mean open and provocative programming of any kind.
The speakers include FCC Chair Michael Powell and frightening Commissioner Michael Copps; the even more frightening head of the so-called Parents Television Council, Brent Bozell; the director of communications of the Conference of Catholic Bishops, Francis Maniscalco. Shall we ask the monsignor about how explicit we're now allowed to get in discussing the crimes of kiddie-diddling priests? OK, I confess, that's a cheap shot. But who's to say that a Catholic priest should be deciding what I should watch and what's responsible? Who's to say that Howard Stern should not also be there to defend the virtues of free speech?
Now, of course, it's a fine thing if broadcasters get together to talk about what they think is responsible. I'm all for that. But this is not being done in further response to the fear of government censorship via huge government fines. Hell, the government is there. So if they are going to have an "open and candid dialogue," invite Stern. Invite me. Invite Ernie Miller. [Thanks, Beat Royalty]free-download motion-DV-Studio
: AND IT SPREADS: St. Petersburg, FL proposes banning "vulgar" speech at outdoor concerts. One legal scholar said the proposal won't survive a constitutional challenge.
"They can't make any restrictions based on the content of speech," said Bruce Howie, legal chair of the Pinellas branch of the American Civil Liberties Union.
In response to a growing number of complaints, the city unveiled a proposal Thursday that would require promoters to pay a $10,000 bond for each performance held at a city park. If an artist uses profanity, a $500 fine would be deducted from the bond for each profane word.
If the violations exceed $10,000, the sound would be shut off and the promoter banned from holding another event for 18 months. Give 'em an inch... free-download motion-DV-Studio
: FCC: FEDERAL COUNCIL OF CENSORS: Eric Boehlert at Salon writes that the FCC is taking on the role of government censor: As for Stern, the commission's decision to fine him for indecency will likely fuel speculation that the famous shock jock is being used by the FCC to make a larger point about indecency. Stern and his supporters can point to three facts in support of that case. First, the content of Stern's show has not changed substantially over the last decade, during which time the commission never fined him. Yet suddenly, amid the controversy sparked by this year's Super Bowl halftime show, he's deemed to be indecent. Second, the fine the FCC levied yesterday was for a broadcast that aired nearly three years ago. If it was indecent in 2001, 2002 and 2003, then why did the FCC wait until 2004 to rule? And third, the raunchy material from Stern's 2001 program that the FCC found to be out of bounds is almost mild compared to the other violations the FCC has been documenting.
It's interesting to note that upon being named the FCC chairman by President Bush in 2001, Powell complained to reporters, "There's a lot of garbage on television. There are a lot of things children shouldn't see." But he stressed, "I don't know that I want the government as my nanny."
What a difference three years make. : PREVIOUS DAILY STERN POSTS: here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here.
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March 19, 2004
Mirror
: Fast Company has a big feature on biz blogging. free-download motion-DV-Studio
Huh or Heh?
: I'll defend anyone's First Amendment right to speak. But I just don't get the Rev. Billy's flashmob campaign to have people on cellphones swarm at the World Trade Center to recite the First Amendment and protest a mall. What the hell does free speech have to do with shopping? And religion? Whatever. free-download motion-DV-Studio
Joblog
: The Wall St. Journal just started a blog on outsourcing jobs. See another from the South Asian Journalists Assn.
:UPDATE: And here's yet another, thanks to VC Ed Sim. free-download motion-DV-Studio
Happy Persian new year
: An explanation of the traditions of the holiday, with blog links, here. free-download motion-DV-Studio
Iraqi bloggers speak to the world
: Paul Wolfowitz quotes Iraqi blogger Ali today and notes the importance of this new means of free speech: After the horrific March 2 bombing that killed 170 at Shi'a shrines in Baghdad and Karbala, one Iraqi had an answer for those in the West who wonder if such tactics can work. His words speak to the horror of the events in Spain last week and in Baghdad on Wednesday.
His name is Ali and his Web log said this about the terrorists and their allies: "They are spitting in the face of the wind."
One of the interesting developments in post-Saddam Iraq is the appearance of amateur Web sites, where Iraqis are taking advantage of modern technology to give voice to their newfound freedom....
A few weeks ago, after an attack on a police station in Fallujah, when the U.S. offered Iraqi Civil Defense Corpsmen help in subduing the attackers, they said, no thanks - we want to do this job ourselves so people will know we can.
Ali, the Iraqi blogger, put such attacks into a larger perspective: "Some people still wonder what would be the relation between the liberation of Iraq and [the] war on terrorism. I think that the fact that nearly all the terrorists are gathered on our land to fight so fiercely should be more than enough explanation." He added: "We are . . . showing [other Arabs] what they can achieve once they are free . . . I see these evil powers show their true and ugly face and play their last card - surer than ever that we are winning."...
Someday, Iraq will be one of these free and prospering nations. As Ali put it so well: "It's just a matter of time." : Well, bravo for Ali and the Iraqi bloggers.
Just this morning, I wrote an email to a magazine editor looking at blogs in that part of the world and I emphasized the power of one person to change the world with blogs.
Hoder did it in Iran. Salam Pax did it in prewar Iraq and Zeyad has been doing it in postwar Iraq, recruiting friends to blog and tell their story to the world.
They have not only told their story to the world. They have told their story to the White House.
Blogs are power. free-download motion-DV-Studio
Iraqi blogs a year later: Bugged
: Zeyad isn't writing about the anniversary of the war. He's writing about the heat in Basrah: Which brings us to the topic of mosquitos/fleas/bugs. Those adorable flying creatures. I remember once asking my parents when I was a bit young and innocent, something like "Why did God create bugs?". Unfortunately nobody then had pointed me to the infamous book authored by Khairallah Talfah (Saddam's uncle) titled 'Three things God should not have created: Jews, Kurds, and mosquitos'.
Anyway, the last four nights have been terrible thanks to those restless godawful vampires. : Zeyad also points us to an article by a member of the Baghdad municipal council telling us that we -- U.S. media and authorities -- are giving too much weight to the words of Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani. free-download motion-DV-Studio
: Ays is writing about the anniversary of the war: For all those who say that the war on Iraq was wrong and G.W.Bush or T.Blair depended on wrong information and their intelligence agencies were misled cause it depended on faulty sources regarding WMD ...
Just tell me what’s your ‘great idea’ that should have been used to get rid of Saddam and put an end to his regime?...
Is it fair to leave people suffering and dying of hunger and oppression, those people who were tortured by monsters and you just stand and watch at them or think in a way to help them...
If you have all the power to put an end to someone who torments millions of people, wouldn’t you help them? We lost innocent men, women and children, millions fled abroad, others left their schools and jobs cause they didn’t earn enough money to eat, millions were executed and then you say “ NO, leave them, we have nothing to do with all of that”.. ! : A military blogger from Iraq arrives back home, safe and sound. God bless. free-download motion-DV-Studio
Calendar
: I would have liked to have gone to the Politics Online Conference but didn't know about it. Is anyone keeping a good calendar of such events? Anybody want to start a wiki for one?free-download motion-DV-Studio
Semitic chic
: Headline of the week from the the Best Week Ever blog: Haven't the Jews Suffered Enough?
Guy Richie and Madonna are scouting locations in Israel for a "God-inspired" film based on the teachings of Kabbalah. Oy, but the suffering never ends. From Jewsweek's Yadayadablog: In a radio interview with WABC's Sean Hannity, director Mel Gibson said he wants to make a movie about the story of Chanukah. "The story that's always fired my imagination ... is the Book of Maccabees," Gibson said. "The Maccabees family stood up, and they made war, they stuck by their guns, and they came out winning. It's like a Western." When Abe Foxman, the head of the Anti Defamation League and a virulent opponent of Gisbon, heard the news, he quipped: "My answer would be 'Thanks but no thanks.' The last thing we need in Jewish history is to convert our history into a Western. In his hands we may wind up losing," he joked. free-download motion-DV-Studio
Packaged
: Bob Stepno quotes a response to the big state-of-media report that just came out, this from Earl Wilkerson, exec director of the International Newspaper Marketing Association. Says Bob: He summarizes some of the report's conclusions this way: "We need more journalists, we need more editors to counter-balance all of that unfiltered blogging on the Internet, and media owners need to sacrifice earnings to do that."
Not so, he says, at least not for newspapers. He thinks they have a bigger need for niche products, things like quick-read tabloids for the youth market. He goes on ...:
"I would respectfully argue that publishing companies don[base ']t need more journalists. We need more editors, re-packagers, researchers, and consumer marketers. It's easy to say we need 'all of the above.' Yet the abdication of news gathering by other traditional media, notably television, leaves newspapers in the unique competitive position of having by far the most 'boots on the ground' gathering news." I say that Wilkerson is right. This is a packaging medium. Most news sites are about packaging news from other sources. And weblogs are certainly about packaging news from everywhere. And that's a wonderful thing: With all these great sources of news newly accessible, there's a need for packaging. Packaging is value.
However, it's still true that without money going to the core news sources to report, there'll be no news to package. And that is an issue for the news industry and all of us. free-download motion-DV-Studio
Another convert
: Thanks to other night's NJ blogger MeetUp, NJ.com has a new blogger. free-download motion-DV-Studio
Blunt
: Mark Cuban posts an apology to fans the morning after a bad Mavs game under the headline, "I suck."free-download motion-DV-Studio
The Daily Stern
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: PORNOGRAPHER OPRAH: This morning, Stern tried to play a clip from the Oprah show yesterday in which they were doing exactly what Stern was fined for yesterday: defining sexual colloquialisms. Oprah defined "tossing your salad," Howard defined "David Copperfield." Oprah played it on her show. Jimmy Kimmel played the clip on his network show to make the point. But Stern's button-pushers hit the delay button when he tried to play it. Howard begged to play it: Let them fine Oprah as a pornographer. But they won't fine Oprah. They only want to fine Stern. Same statement, different mouths, different treatment. free-download motion-DV-Studio
I just bought the transcript of the Oprah show and here is what was said yesterday: WINFREY: OK--so--OK, so what is a salad toss?
Ms. BURFORD: OK, a tossed salad is--get ready; hold on to your underwear for this one--oral anal sex. So oral sex to the anus is what tossed salad is.
Hi, Mom. That is exactly the kind of statement for which Stern was fined yesterday. Exactly. Here's the Stern transcript. And I quote: HS: Well, a blumpkin is receiving oral sex while you’re sitting on a toilet bowl if you are a man. You’re sitting on a toilet bowl and uh, while you’re evacuating you receive your oral.
RQ: Ick. Yeah, ick. But if it's icky on Stern, it's icky on Oprah.
Come on, Michael Powell, let's see you fine Oprah, huh?
And, by the way, the Oprah show gets much more graphic. I'm not even telling you what a "rainbow party" is, and, believe me, it has nothing to do with the Rainbow Coalition. And don't tell me for one minute that this wasn't done to tittilate, sensationalize, shock, and entertain. It was.
So let's all complain: Send an email to Michael Powell -- Michael.Powell@fcc.gov -- or to tough guy Michael Copps -- Michael.Copps@fcc.gov -- and say: If you fined Howard, we dare you to fine Oprah. If it's offensive on Howard, it's offensive on Oprah. We dare you. free-download motion-DV-Studio
: WHY NOW? Stern points out this morning that he has not been fined years (the story below says 1998 was the last). Suddenly, they dig up a three-year-old "sin" to fine him. See my take below.
Guest Mike Walker this morning said the net result is that the left now has a talk-show star and it's Howard Stern.
Walker also told Stern -- oddly, he didn't know it -- that his station in L.A., KLSX, is holding a rally this morning for him and free speech. Hello, L.A. bloggers: Coverage, please.
UPDATE: Stern said the "rally" is a walk put on by Larry Melrose Green, a member of the wackpack. Howard didn't know about it or authorize it and he would rather put on a decent event himself. free-download motion-DV-Studio
: THE PREQUEL: Stern starts the show off with a report on Courtney Love's out-of-control concert last night and says he will talk about the fine later in the show. "This is nothing. This is the prequel."free-download motion-DV-Studio
: FCCIBAN: I give you choice excerpts from the FCC rulings in this post and the one below. Ernie Miller of Yale F-ing Law School stayed up all night to analzye the FCC's decision to, for the first time, fine a broadcast as "profane."
This gives the FCC something to fall back on in case a court finds that "f-ing brilliant" isn't "indecent." Now the FCC argues separately, it's also "profane." But Ernie explains in detail how "profane" and "indecent" thus can't mean the same thing.
And so what does "profane" mean? It has meant blasphemy. But, as Ernie says, it's hard to imagine that in this day and age, a court would allow the FCC to regulate speech based on religious standards (well, we can only pray). So what words would be profane -- that is, patently offensive -- yet distinct from indecent -- that is, having to do with sex and excrement (i.e., the seven dirty words)? Ernie can think it's only racial epithets.
Thus, he asks, is the FCC with this ruling on Bono's F-word trying to broaden its authority to take in more dirty words, including hate speech?
Or are they just trying to cover their stupid, fat asses?free-download motion-DV-Studio
: F-ING STUPID: It's an f-ing spectator sport watching the FCC trip over itself trying to justify finding Bono guilty of f-ing indecency for saying "f-ing brilliant" at an f-ing awards show (PDF here): conclude that use of the phrase at issue is within the scope of our indecency definition because it does depict or describe sexual activities. We recognize NBC’s argument that the “FWord” here was used “as an intensifier.”23 Nevertheless, we believe that, given the core meaning of the “F-Word,” any use of that word or a variation, in any context, inherently has a sexual connotation, and therefore falls within the first prong of our indecency definition. And that is almost as much fun as watching FCC Chairman Michael Powell tapdance and push this political ruling while also trying to hold onto his Constitutional self-respect: Going forward, as instructed by the Supreme Court, we must use our enforcement tools cautiously. As I have said since becoming a Commissioner, government action in this area can have a potential chilling effect on free speech. We guard against this by ruling when a clear line has been crossed and the government has no choice but to act.
We will continue to respect the delicate balance of protecting the interests of the First Amendment with the need to protect our children. : BIGGER THAN NADER: MTV news says Stern could be bigger than Nader in this election: As the race for the White House gathers steam, there's a segment of voters suddenly drawing more attention than soccer moms or NASCAR dads: Howard Stern fans.
"[The Howard Stern vote] will have more of an effect than the Nader vote," said Matthew Felling, media director for the Center for Media and Public Affairs. : THE LEWDERBOARD: The Center for Public Integrity analyzed the FCC's actions against so-called "indecency" since 1990 and as of yesterday (before last night's fines): The Federal Communications Commission has proposed $3.95 million in fines for broadcast indecency since 1990, with half the total assessed to shock-radio pioneer Howard Stern and his employer Infinity Broadcasting.
Stern is No. 1 since 1990, despite not being assessed a fine since June 1998. The drought is expected to end soon, however. The Wall Street Journal reported about a dozen cases are being finalized and Stern is a target.
The FCC sought $1.96 million in fines from the stations that carried the controversial New York-based disc jockey's show since 1990, according to the analysis. The bulk of those fines were for shows broadcast between 1991 and 1993. Five separate actions were settled for a record $1.71 million in 1995.
Using FCC records and LexisNexis legal research, the Center for Public Integrity identified 72 broadcast indecency proceedings instigated by the FCC since 1990. : NO, NOT VIOLENCE: Advertisers are complaining to Congress about Fritz Hollings' add-on to the indecent indecency bill attempting to regulate violence, too: Advertising trade groups on Wednesday urged Congress to reject anti-violence provisions written into anti-indecency legislation, saying the added language would turn federal regulators into TV critics and censors. Well, yeah... free-download motion-DV-Studio
: TWO-TO-ONE: Gamblin' man Bill Bennett weighs in on the story with a convoluted piece of drivel on Claremont's site that, I think, says he's against government censorship but he thinks fines aren't censorship, they're more like a tax on brothels. (Or gambling.) free-download motion-DV-Studio
: GET YOUR BURKA ON: Stern's site links to Rep Ron Paul's (R, TX) speech to the House against the indecent indecency bill: This atrocious piece of legislation should be defeated. It cannot improve the moral behavior of U.S. citizens, but it can do irreparable harm to our cherished right to freedom of speech.
This attempt at regulating and punishing indecent and sexually provocative language suggests a comparison to the Wahhabi religious police of Saudi Arabia, who control the "Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice." Though both may be motivated by the good intentions of improving moral behavior, using government force to do so is fraught with great danger and has no chance of success.
Regulating speech is a dangerous notion, and not compatible with the principles of a free society. The Founders recognized this, and thus explicitly prohibited Congress from making any laws that might abridge freedom of speech or of the press.
But we have in recent decades seen a steady erosion of this protection of free speech. : YOU'RE FINED: The Radical Cowboy sees a link between the fines against Stern and Donald Trump trying to own the phrase, "you're fired."
If you think the Trump and Stern stories are unrelated, they're not. On the one hand there's Stern, whom the government seeks to shut down on account of they don't like what he's saying. On the other hand there's Trump, who's seeking government permission to prevent people like me and you from using a silly two-word cliche in ways that might prevent him from making money. What they do, when they do this sort of stuff, is create two classes of people: Those with permission to speak, and those with permission to sit back, shut up, and listen.
: PREVIOUS DAILY STERN POSTS: here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here.
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March 18, 2004
The Daily Stern bulletin: Stern fined
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: MY TAKE: So Howard Stern was fined the maximum (for now) of $27,500 for one offense for describing -- lock up grandma, kick the kids off the Internet, hide your eyes, get ready to burn in hell -- a sex act on a toilet bowl. He was fined for one statement on one station in July 2001. Details below.free-download motion-DV-Studio
So here's my take on this: The FCC had to back off. They had to fine him something after making such a fuss. But they didn't want to fine him too much and be the ones to force him off the air ... just yet. That's because Stern has become a political hot potato. So they dug up an old offense from almost three years ago -- it's not to hard to find "offenses" when your definition of offensiveness is a moving target -- and picked up on a complaint regarding only one station -- when they could have fined him for every one of the many stations on which it aired. And they got it off their desk.free-download motion-DV-Studio
But everybody's painted into a corner:free-download motion-DV-Studio
If the FCC had gone wacky on the fine and gone after millions, they now could be accused of trying to muzzle a Bush critic in the election year. If they hadn't fined him after telling Viacom and the Wall Street Journal that they would, then they'd look like wimps who backed off only because Stern was now a very vocal Bush critic -- thus proving the allegation that this is all, indeed, political. So they went for the minimum they could get away with. They wanted to pass the hot potato off to Congress.free-download motion-DV-Studio
Congress, meanwhile, has beaten its breasts about breasts and is about to complete legislation that is clearly and indecently unconstitutional, imposing $500,000 on not only the broadcasting company but on every performer per "offense." And they threw in other antimedia slaps just to make them feel good, but which are so clearly over the line that they make even Michael Powell nervous. They got carried away. Look at just yesterday's posts here: there is a building outcry about this unconstitutional outrage and perfomers' unions are starting to scream. But our lawmakers, our national nannies, are stuck: They have to pass it. The more reasonable members of Congress may hope that the courts overturn the legislation and get them off this moral and historical hook -- but by that time, it will be too late; damage will be done.free-download motion-DV-Studio
Bush has to sign the indecent indecency legislation because he said he would and because the religious right will demand it.free-download motion-DV-Studio
But Stern has already warned that the moment Bush signs it, he will leave the air. Oh, we can argue whether Infinity will let him but they can't force him -- and everyone on his show -- to undertake millions of dollars of personal liability; the circumstances of his show will have changed in a way that surely breaks his contract; they've already announced a "zero tolerance" policy: get fined, get fired. So with Bush's stroke of the pen, Bush gets rid of a Bush critic, even if that's no longer what he intends. And now I don't believe he intends it because he will only make Stern a very loud martyr.free-download motion-DV-Studio
Infinity is stuck losing a huge money maker. Clear Channel already killed its huge money maker. And together they will watch Stern make satellite an overnight success at their expense. (I'm not selling my Sirius stock but I am thinking of selling my Viacom stock.)free-download motion-DV-Studio
And Stern goes on to build a campaign against Bush -- and, by then, quite a few members of Congress. And he builds a new industry and gets the credit for it. He'll lose money and audience but he'll also lose hassle. free-download motion-DV-Studio
All because of one chrome-plated boobie. Now doesn't everybody feel like a complete jackass? free-download motion-DV-Studio
I'll report what Stern says in the morning. Below is the bulletin I filed on my Treo from my church meeting and then details from the FCC filings.free-download motion-DV-Studio
: THE BULLETIN : Just got email with this. I am blogging from church again. More later. Appears the FCC is trying to backstep. AP report: Federal regulators continued their crackdown on indecency Thursday, issuing a fine for a broadcast of the Howard Stern radio show and ruling that an expletive uttered by rock singer Bono on NBC violated broadcast standards.
The Federal Communications Commission proposed fining Infinity Broadcasting the maximum $27,500 for a Stern show broadcast on WKRK-FM in Detroit.
The FCC also overruled its staff and said that Bono's expletive during the 2003 Golden Globe Awards program was indecent and profane, but issued no fine.
FCC Chairman Michael Powell had asked his fellow commissioners to overturn the FCC enforcement bureau's finding.
The FCC also proposed fining a subsidiary of Clear Channel Communications $55,000 for a broadcast on two Florida radio stations where the host conducted an interview with a couple allegedly having sex.. : THE RULING: Here is a PDF of the FCC filing. Amazing how much legal mumbo jumbo can go into one dumb little potty joke. The lawyers go out of their way to sew themselves a cloak of many constitutional colors: The Commission’s role in overseeing program content is very limited. The First Amendment to the United States Constitution and section 326 of the Act prohibit the Commission from censoring program material and from interfering with broadcasters’ freedom of expression. The Commission does, however, have the authority to enforce statutory and regulatory provisions restricting indecency and obscenity. As to the offense, it was important for them to dig up something about sex on a toilet because things sexual and excretory are no-nos and thus this was a double-play. And they found it. As an initial matter, Infinity disputes that it aired material describing or depicting sexual and excretory activities and organs. Specifically, Infinity argues that the material contains “brief and non-descriptive references to sexual practices that employ only clinical terms such as “evacuating” and “oral sex.” We disagree. Infinity’s argument cites only one of the sexual practices described in the complained-of material. In any event, the material at issue clearly describes named sexual practices and also describes features of an excretory organ. You have to go to the footnotes and transcript to see the actual references. For example, one of them is a "David Copperfield." I'd never heard of that in any obscene context other than "obscenely rich magician," but then perhaps I have led a sheltered adulthood. The lawyers also have lots of devils dancing on the heads of pins over why this is being penalized but other references to sex on other shows have not been. The FCC says this is worse but that is oh, so clearly subjective. (Hello, Supreme Court, are you reading this?). free-download motion-DV-Studio
Now here's my very favorite part from Infinity (my emphasis added because it's just so sweet): Infinity argues that due to profound changes in social mores, the range of acceptable topics and words for broadcast discussion has changed dramatically, especially in light of widespread media coverage of sex scandals involving President Clinton and the Roman Catholic Church. HEH. If news stories about b-jobs in the White House and priests diddling little boys in churches didn't corrupt us, how can Howard Stern? But the FCC rejects this. free-download motion-DV-Studio
One footnote says this: As part of its response, Infinity indicated that it did not know whether other Infinity stations broadcast the language alleged by the complainant. Because the only evidence in the record relates to WKRK-FM, we limit our action here to that station. That's a load of hooey. The show's syndicated on lots of stations; the FCC just didn't want to multiply this fine now. Frightening Commissioner Michael Copps, who dissented because he also wanted to revoke the station's license, calls the FCC on its own fib -- "the Commission proposes a fine against only WKRK-FM in Detroit notwithstanding that this program airs on numerous stations across the country." free-download motion-DV-Studio
It's all theater, folks. Theater of the absurd. free-download motion-DV-Studio
Vote early, vote often
: Yehudit in my comments has an assignment for all of us -- and spread the word quickly: Go to the home page of al-Jazeera and vote in their "poll": Should Spain pull its troops out of Iraq?
Hmmmm. free-download motion-DV-Studio
The Daily Stern: PM edition
: First, go read this post, below, about the bigger issues regarding Howard Stern and free speech. See Doc Searls' insightful argument that the problem is, we're treating speech as a channel rather than as very personal communication. free-download motion-DV-Studio
Now go see Ernie Miller's very insightful response, in which he argues that this is precisely how we should hope that content is treated: On the contrary, the more that we treat speech as undifferentiated cargo, the better off freedom of expression is. When everything is cargo you worry more about how it is distributed than the content of the cargo.... They're both right. free-download motion-DV-Studio
From a Constitutional perspective -- from the perspective of what makes America America -- Doc is right: We must remember that speech is personal; it is our dearest right, our greatest value, our unique expression. If you don't protect our speech, you don't protect our lives and how we live them. Speech is the most fundamental of our rights.free-download motion-DV-Studio
From a government, a regulatory perspective -- what should we do about this? -- Ernie is right: Government should not differentiate one particle of speech -- whether a bit of data, a dot on a screen, a soundwave, a letter on a page, a brushstroke, or a word shouted from a soapbox -- from another. Government's only job is to assure efficient and open transport of our speech. (Now here Ernie and I might split a bit. I will argue for deregulation of speech in all ways, including business. Ernie will argue, as he does at the end of his post, that government must not abet the creation of monopolies that restrict access to distribution. I would argue, in return, that we aren't at the point of monopolies and that consolidation is necessary to protect some modes of speech.)free-download motion-DV-Studio
: I am delighted to see this discussion raise to this level. When all this started -- when I began covering these issues every day -- many tried to drag the discussion down to personal dislikes of the star involved -- Howard -- or of what each person thinks is offensive or of politics. But the issue is much, much bigger than that. It's about protecting our Constitution and our most cherished values and our very way of life. If you don't protect free speech, you will lose it, for there are many who would be delighted to take it away. But that would be unconstitutional. That would be wrong. And that is what the discussion is really about. free-download motion-DV-Studio
Axis of appeasement
: Tom Friedman says today: The new Spanish government's decision to respond to the attack by Al Qaeda by going ahead with plans to pull its troops from Iraq constitutes the most dangerous moment we've faced since 9/11. It's what happens when the Axis of Evil intersects with the Axis of Appeasement and the Axis of Incompetence. It's a good and tough column -- tough not just on the Spanish for running away from democracy in Iraq but also tough on us for not sending more troops to Iraq to assure and protect the growth of democracy. free-download motion-DV-Studio
We can only hope
: Command Post emails an alert that Pakistani troops have surrounded a "high-value target." FoxNews and the AP say it's the No. 2 man. free-download motion-DV-Studio
Investigate
: Micah Sifry wants to spread the word on a grant for foreign investigative journalism, the Robert I. Friedman Awards. Details here. Doc says bloggers should apply. Zeyad?free-download motion-DV-Studio
Celebrity blogging
: Mark Cuban starts blogging and Dan Gillmor shoots him five questions, which Cuban promptly answers. It's two-way, man, it's two-way. free-download motion-DV-Studio
Profane
: I just saw the TV commercial for Mel Gibson's Passion and I have to say it felt oddly, uncomfortably profane: Come see Christ die! Now!
Can't wait until it's out on DVD and they offer the uncut version.free-download motion-DV-Studio
: But seriously... In Germany, churches are fretting about the impact The Passion will have on antisemitism there, as well they should. Germany's Roman Catholic and Protestant churches joined the Jewish community Thursday in a rare joint declaration to warn that Mel Gibson's film "The Passion of the Christ" could fan anti-Semitism in Europe.
In their first joint statement in four years, the Central Council of Jews in Germany, the German Bishops Conference and the Protestant Church criticized the film that opened on Thursday in Germany for its "overly negative portrayal" of Jews.
"There is a danger the film will revive anti-Semitic prejudices," they said.
"This is especially explosive in view of the situation in Europe with a noticeable increase in anti-Semitism. Whether its intention was anti-Semitic or not, there is a danger it could be used as anti-Semitic propaganda." Amen. free-download motion-DV-Studio
: UPDATE: The test of The Passion's anti-Semitism is not how many lynchings, bombings, murders, graffiti-scrawlings it causes. That meme is spreading in the comments here and in plenty of places and so I'll repeat my reply here.
The test, instead, is the critical -- that is, subjective -- judgment of the work itself: Is it anti-Semitic? I believe it is for reasons I made clear the day after it opened, when I saw it.
Now I do not believe that TV violence begets real-life violence. People who are going to go on mass-murder sprees are going to do that anyway and TV certainly cannot make them do it. So I discredit all those stupid stories of people copying TV or movies whenever they come out.
So if there are more anti-Semitic acts in Europe after the film opens, I would be the first to say that the film is not the cause, only the latest excuse.
Germany is, of course, a quite special case. There are restrictions on speech there that are understandable on one level. But at some point, they need to grapple with the fact that stopping someone from saying something anti-Semitic does not make them tolerant. These religious leaders are grappling with exactly that because of The Passion. They feel compelled to call anti-Semitism where they see it. And they see it in this film. And they should know it when they see it...
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Headless Story in Bottomless Feed
: RSS gets its moment in the mass-market sun with a story in the NY Post. It's a bit off, fretting that this could be a TiVo-like way to get around ads (when those who create feeds will decide what's in them; I think RSS is just another way to deliver and organize content).free-download motion-DV-Studio
F the FCC
: Note that Sony came out with the cure for FCC censorship -- and media consolidation (not to mention the common cold): The cellular radio and entertainment device. You can get what you want when and where you want it and nobody can stop you. free-download motion-DV-Studio
Good investment
: I am delighted to see that my original Hugh MacLeod cartoon-on-the-back-of-a-business-card has already skyrocketed in value. free-download motion-DV-Studio
The Daily Stern: The real issue
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: FOREST, MEET TREES: Something important happened yesterday. Three good thinkers and great writers -- blog commentator Doc Searls, print critic Tom Shales, and radio commentator Ira Glass -- have done what I've been trying to do from the start and that is, demonstrate that this is about more than Howard Stern. It's about you. It's about free speech. It's about your freedoms. It's about our Constitution, baby. Read on.free-download motion-DV-Studio
: DOC SEARLS: Inspired by something Shales said (below), Doc reconfigures the entire discussion brilliantly and I hope he'll forgive for quoting at length (with my emphases added): So one wonders why an apparently sane and well-informed bureaucrat like [FCC Chairman Michael] Powell — an avowed pro-market regulation-averse conservative, no less — would suddenly get so censorious. Same with Congress. What makes them so eager to discourage undefined "indecency," apparently at all costs?
As always, the answer is metaphorical.
Ever since we reconceived press and broadcast as "channels" and "media," and their goods as "content," we have understood them, literally, in terms of shipping.
When you subsume speech into "content delivery," you reduce it to cargo. It becomes just another deliverable. Packing material. You can abridge its freedoms all you want. (At least on the broadcast side. It's a little harder where printing presses are still involved.)
Speech, as the founders conceived it, was something that happened among people, in society. It had a place: the street, the parlor, the town square, the village commons. Even when published, by a press, it was still personal. Take the example of Franklin's original blog, Poor Richard's Almanac. It was a form of printed speech that grew and spread like a weed on the lawn of the marketplace. But popular as it may have become, it was still "speech" because it was personal. People speak. "Content" doesn't. It's just cargo. And you can regulate the crap out of cargo.
Here's what's truly offensive about Stern to the Torquemadas in the FCC and Congress: he's personal. And he's real. Howard's show resembles nothing else in radio (least of all the forced-laugh morning "zoo" shows that so fully misunderstand Stern that all they can do is copy, poorly, his bits involving strippers, celebrities and silly news items); yet it does resemble something a few millon of us know well: the neighborhood bar. A place where buddies are free to act like jerks because, well, their buddies understand them.
My point: a bar is a place. Free speech happens in a place. The very presence of a local bar on everybody's radio both offends and threatens the shipping mentality of the mediocracy — a group that includes not only giant mutant transport companies like Clear Channel and Viacom, but also its allied lawmakers and regulators: Congress and the FCC. That's why the latter feel just fine "controlling" what "goes out" through "the media" as if all of it were container cargo.
Got a consumer complaint about certain kinds of cargo? Hell, just forbid traffic in it. Send out the indecency-sniffing dogs. Impound forbidden goods at Customs. Fine the offending freight packers and forwarders. Never mind that nobody can define "indecency." The dogs know. Beautifully said. Speech is personal. And when government tries to regulate speech, it is personal. It's about you. It's about me. It's about our Constitution, man. free-download motion-DV-Studio
: TOM SHALES: He's a former competitor of mine (he won) and an amazing writer; I don't agree with everything he says about TV shows or government regulation.
He makes the same braindead argument some braindead congressmen are making, trying to make media consolidation a sex act: As wary observers have noted, one factor clearly responsible for the overabundance of smut in TV and radio is the concentration of media ownership in fewer and fewer sinfully wealthy hands-and the death of localism it is helping to bring about. That's ludicrous on its face: Larry Flynt could buy one local radio station and make it into the Hustler soundtrack. That argument is just wrong.
I am consistently against regulation of speech, whether that's the government saying who can speak or the government saying what they can speak. So Tom and I disagree on that.
But we strongly agree that Congress and the FCC have gone insane over a mere breast and that they are doing dangerous things. They are setting us up so that a few unelected bureacrats will be allowed to decide not only what can be said by whom but also to impose punishment on those who do speak: For 20 years, listeners to Mr. Stern's radio program have known precisely what to expect. Howard Stern may make an unappetizing poster child for First Amendment freedoms, but he's as entitled to them as anybody....
Of course no acceptable working definition of "indecency" exists, which complicates things. Who decides what is indecent? Maybe it will be left to the whims of Chairman Powell. The new $500,000 fine for individual acts of indecency would apparently apply not only to licensees but also to personalities, like Stern. And what about a panelist or guest on a talk show who utters a naughty-naughty? If George Will loses control (an impossibility, admittedly) and spews a longshoremanly blue streak some Sunday morning on ABC, will federal marshals arrive at his doorstep on Monday?...
Whatever happened to letting "the marketplace" decide? All we've heard for years from FCC appointees-Powell included-and other political leaders of a particular persuasion is that the marketplace can police itself with no help from meddlers in Washington. That theory was gospel-until L'Affaire Nipple and until the FCC ran into unexpected opposition in its attempts to let Big Media get still bigger.
Howard Stern does just fine in the marketplace. Many people find him offensive and don't listen. The same can be said of Rush Limbaugh or Bill O'Reilly....
Remember Al Pacino in "And Justice for All"?-"I'm out of order? You're out of order! This whole court is out of order!" Somebody has to go up to Capitol Hill and start screaming, and what they can scream is, "I'm indecent? You're indecent! This whole [expletive deleted] Congress is indecent! Attica! Attica! Attica!"
Oh, wait. That was another Al Pacino movie. Anyway, what a chicken-hearted and lily-livered Congress has wrought is not merely indecent. It truly is obscene. Amen, brother critic, amen. free-download motion-DV-Studio
: IRA GLASS: I heard this week's This American Life on NPR last night as I drove home from the NJ.com blog MeetUp. Host Ira Glass started the show talking about his every-morning habit of switching back and forth between Howard Stern and NPR. He didn't say it with the slight hesitation or explanation or apology; he said thousands do it in every market; the combo audience is smart and highly-educated. Yes, we are.
And then he talked about how this story is being framed -- the pressthink of it. To Howard, he said, it's a simple First Amendment story -- "not an issue of him going too far but of the government going too far." Amen. To the press, he said, it's treated as a wacky story -- oh, that wacky Howard said something wacky again and he's getting in trouble for it; that framing of the story, Glass said, isn't in the least bit helpful. Amen again. The religious crusaders going after Stern thing they are saving children and Glass had a conversation with one of their leaders asking what the real harm is if a child hears the words "anal sex" -- no, what's the real harm?
But Glass said the real story here is that we are undergoing a sea change in how government will regulate and control media and speech. It's a big story, a real story, an important story.
This from someone who listens to NPR on NPR... and a Howard Stern fan. free-download motion-DV-Studio
: A CALL TO ARMS... AND BREASTS!: The theme here is that everyone has missed the real story.
It is especially shocking that journalists -- who depend on free speech for life, like coma patients on the IV -- are not speaking up in anger, in rage. They should be protesting. They should be daring the FCC and Congress to come and get them. They, of all people, should be protecting the First Amendment against this attempted murder.
Katie Couric and Diane Sawyer and (even) Barbara Walters should get on live TV today and rip off their blouses and bras!
Tom Brokaw and Bill O'Reilly and Dan Rather should drop their drawers and show their weenies and say, "That's the way it is."
Rush Limbaugh and Al Franken and (even) Don Imus should let out a blue streak of seven -- no seventy -- dirty words, shouting them over and over until every 10-second and 90-second delay is gone and there's nothing but air between them and us.
This is serious, people. This is not about Howard Stern. This is about you.
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The Daily Stern: Briefs
: The big Stern post is above. Here are some other updates as the day goes on:free-download motion-DV-Studio
: IT'S ABOUT TALK RADIO: Conservatives are worried that once one talk-radio host is censored, all can be censored. The American Spectator properly frets: Legislation like this sets a precedent. If stations can be shut down for the garbage spewed by Stern, what happens when President Hillary advocates, and gets passed a liberal Congress, legislation which allows complaints to be filed for hate speech. Hate speech could well be defined as exactly what Rush, Sean Hannity, Mike Reagan and others put out over the airwaves.
Talk radio is becoming stronger, not weaker....
News Talk formats saved AM. AM stations were on the brink of extinction until talk radio came along. It came along because the so-called "fairness doctrine" was repealed during the Reagan Administration. Media was also deregulated. That came with a price. The price was Howard Stern and his filthy local counterparts.
The idea was that people could be their masters. If they didn't think a station was appropriate they would tune elsewhere. The market would rule. Until you go to tell the market to go to hell; Congress and the FCC know better than we, the people.
Well go to George Bush and Michael Powell and all the guys on your side of the aisle in Congress about this. Tell them to think twice before the go shooting holes through the Constitution. It's your Constitition, too. And as for the Democrats... Well, Al Franken, let's see you make your first day on the air a rallying cry for free speech and talk radio! [Thanks,TVsHenry] free-download motion-DV-Studio
: MEANWHILE, BACK AT THE RANCH: Howard plans to put up on the Internet the complete list of what the show's button-hitter, Dead Air Dave, has cut out of the show. "I must have crapped in my pants," is one of the indecencies from which we've been saved. But now you've been corrupted. free-download motion-DV-Studio
: HYPOCRISY: The New York Post is picking up on the corner into which Clear Channel has painted itself by pointing out all the no-no's that occur on its concert stages. News bulletin: Chris Rock says bad words! Brittany Spears girates her hips! Whatcha gonna do about it, CC? [Thanks, Beat Royalty]free-download motion-DV-Studio
: NEXT: They said this morning that the Senate gets back to work from vacation at the end of the month. That's when they will take up their indecent indecency bill and reconcile it with the House's and send it to Bush. That is when Howard says he will go. free-download motion-DV-Studio
: SHOCK THE VOTE: The Boston Globe asks whether Stern could move the election. free-download motion-DV-Studio
: ON SECOND THOUGHT: In the true spirit of a Stern fan, I'll amend my list of suggested bra-busting protesters (above). How about, instead: Norah O'Donnell, Soledad O'Brien, and, oh, Kelly O'Donnell. Yeah, that's better. free-download motion-DV-Studio
: LIKE THE MAN SAID, YOU CAN'T PICK YOUR POSTER CHILDREN FOR THE FIRST AMENDMENT: Instead of any of the nominees above, we get Courtney Love (on a detour on her way to the slammer) exposing herself on Letterman. free-download motion-DV-Studio
: PREVIOUS DAILY STERN POSTS: here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here.
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And the lion and the lamb shall report together
: Jay Rosen has a great post about a blogger who watches the LA Times for any sign, any smell, any confirmation of liberal bias and who gets utterly gobsmacked when the Times listens to him.
The Times reported on a no-no by conservative Supreme Court Justice Scalia; Patterico was incensed that they did not report the exactly comparable no-no from liberal Justice Ginsberg. He wrote about it on his blog and wrote to the Times and snidely, cynically assumed -- as gospel -- that the Times would never write the equivalent story about Ginsberg.
Well, as Gomer used to say: Surprise, surprise, surprise! Look what happened:
The reporters contacted Patterico and wrote the story and it, too, played on Page 1.
Jay sees this, rightly, as a powerful example of the new, two-way relationship in news media.
Now it so happens that only a few hours before, in two separate posts, I had written about how blogging has made me discover that new, two-way relationship between poster or publisher and public. (And that's why Jay and I became such fast friends and colleagues in blogging; from the first moment we met only, we happened to be thinking and writing about the same things; strange digital kismet; the real social software.)
And the point is, it truly is possible to create a new relationship between big media and the public once both sides listen and respect each other, once it truly becomes two-way.
Go read Jay's whole post because it's a compelling tale and an important view -- a revolutionary view -- of journalism. To Jay, the real journalism going on here was the blogger's, the citizen's.
And the real hope is that both sides learn to respect each other more and listen to each other more and not be so cynical about each other. (That's what I was trying to say yesterday when I talked about getting big and little media together in a bar to learn that, yes, everybody is trying hard to do the right thing.)
The press can't do this alone, without the journalism and dogging of the citizens. The citizens can't do it alone without the resources and dogging of the press. Together, they -- we -- can do important things for society.
See the dawn of a new age of journalism at Pressthink.free-download motion-DV-Studio
: Paterico leaves a comment complaining that I was harsh in my tone by calling him cynical and thus implied that he had no cause to be cynical. I apologize and want to make that clear. This is what I said in response to his comment: I did not mean to say that there was not cause for cynicism; what I mean to say is that the only way to CURE that cynicism is to do EXACTLY what Patterico did and EXACTLY what the LA Times did in response. This is a success story; that's Jay's point so well stated. And we need more such success stories. free-download motion-DV-Studio
The utter folly of playing to al Qaeda
: In The Australian, Greg Sheridan debunks all the bunk about thinking that we can influence the insane behavior of al Qaeda. The debate this week over whether having, unlike Spain, gone to war in Iraq makes us a greater target for terrorist attack has had one missing ingredient - the terrorists....free-download motion-DV-Studio
If only we have the approval of the UN, al-Qaeda won't attack us, this thinking sometimes goes. But al-Qaeda bombs the UN itself. Well, then, if only we opposed US foreign policy, specifically the war in Iraq. But al-Qaeda and its affiliates attack Indonesia, which opposed the war, and Turkey, which refused to let US troops enter Iraq from its soil. free-download motion-DV-Studio
The failure to look seriously at al-Qaeda and what motivates it leads to a repeated analytical failure. Surely al-Qaeda and its affiliates are one of the most extraordinary and important fanatical movements in recent history. Yet our intellectual class is almost entirely uninterested in them. A paradox, no? ...free-download motion-DV-Studio
Everyone now repeats the mantra that being an ally of the US increases our risk of becoming a terrorist target. Yet al-Qaeda attacks so many nations that are not allies of the US. Who can possibly say with authority what increases the risk? ...
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March 17, 2004
At the Jersey blog MeetUp
: I'm at the NJ.com blog meetup and here's a link to one of the bloggers, a town father of South Orange who blogs on NJ.com. Another local blogger who uses his for biz. Tom of TheMediaDrop is here, talking about redoing his house. More later.
Tom told the story of being dropped from the PR Newswire's journalist section because he couldn't give them a clip from a publication showing he's a journalist. What incredibly numbnutty flacks they are! Don't they get that this is the future of journalism? Don't they get that they should be grateful that anybody is ever paying attention to their grating press releases? Jeesh.
And then Debra Gallant, the charming writer for The New York Times -- and blogger -- dropped in. Various of us had talked to her about a story she's writing for The Times on Jersey bloggers and it was a real pleasure to meet in person. She said she'd just donated blogging lessons to her temple's fundraiser; I like that idea.
I should also plug our hosts: South Orange blogger Tracy Randinelli; Jersey blogger John Shabe; and NJ.com Editor-in-chief Dean Betz. free-download motion-DV-Studio
A year later
: Today is the one-year anniversary of the amazing, wonderful, useful, groundbreaking, news-business-changing Command Post... but cofounder Michele is not celebrating. She's fretting: Everybody loves an anniversary, terrorists included. Numbers, symbolism, special dates - conspiracy theorists have a field day with that stuff. But it's not always theory, is it?
Now that we know al-Qaeda is seeking revenge for America and its allies participation in the de-throning of Saddam, I have to wonder if that merry band of murderers has something up their collective sleeves. free-download motion-DV-Studio
The Daily Stern: PM edition
: F KCRW: Sandra Tsing Loh, fired KCRW commentator and fellow traveler with Howard Stern and Bubba the Love Sponge, writes her story for Time and concludes: I’ve seen the future and it is John Tesh. . . music. Pre-recorded. : UNCONSTITUTIONAL, SAYS AFTRA: Show biz union AFTRA has struck out against the indecent indecency bills rushing through Congress: The American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA) has challenged Congress' attempt to place heavy fines for indecency on broadcasters and on-air artists, calling the proposed legislation "unconstitutional."
John Connolly, AFTRA's national president, and Greg Hessinger, the union's national executive director, on Tuesday faxed letters to all 100 members of the U.S. Senate questioning the legality of S. 2056, the proposed Broadcast Decency Enforcement Act....
Connolly and Hessinger said the senators should reject the legislation because "it represents an unconstitutional threat to the First Amendment and would have an immediate and significant chilling effect on artistic freedom...." : My friend and colleage Joe Territo also sides with Howard and is dubious about the new liberal radio network: "But I don't see myself ever listening to Franken radio, unless he can put a liberal spin on lesbian dial-a-date." free-download motion-DV-Studio
: UPDATE: Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas told Mel Karmazin to get rid of Howard Stern and didn't like Karmazin's reply defending Stern. Story here. Some interesting background on Brownback here: Six members of Congress live in a million-dollar Capitol Hill townhouse that is subsidized by a secretive religious organization, tax records show.
The lawmakers, all of whom are Christian, pay low rent to live in the stately red brick, three-story house on C Street, two blocks from the Capitol. It is maintained by a group, alternately known as the ''Fellowship'' and the ''Foundation,'' that brings together world leaders and elected officials through religion.
The Fellowship is host of receptions, luncheons and prayer meetings on the first two floors of the house, which is registered with the IRS as a church. The six lawmakers — U.S. Reps. Zach Wamp, R-Chattanooga; Bart Stupak, D-Mich.; Jim DeMint, R-S.C.; and Mike Doyle, D-Pa.; and U.S. Sens. John Ensign, R-Nev.; and Sam Brownback, R-Kan. — live in private rooms upstairs.
Rent is $600 a month, DeMint said....
Its tenants dine together once a week to discuss religion in their daily lives. A very special interest. free-download motion-DV-Studio
What a twit
: I was already glad that Howard Dean lost. But, you know, the guy manages to remind me of how glad I am: Former Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean said yesterday that President Bush's decision to send troops to Iraq appears to have contributed to the bombing deaths of 201 people in Spain....
Dean referred to the videotape when asked whether he was linking US troops in Iraq to the deaths in Spain.
"That was what they said in the tape," Dean said. "They made that connection, I'm simply repeating it."
Dean made the remarks during a conference call with reporters as he was defending his former rival John F. Kerry, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, from a Bush campaign ad. The ad accused Kerry of turning his back on US soldiers fighting in Iraq.
Dean said it is the president who has not supported the troops. He said Bush sent soldiers to Iraq unequipped, misled the country on the reasons for war, and made the United States less safe by focusing on a target that wasn't a threat.
And, he said, "The president was the one who dragged our troops to Iraq, which apparently has been a factor in the death of 200 Spaniards over the weekend."
Dean issued a statement later to The Associated Press that said, "Let me be clear, there is no justification for terrorism. Today I was simply repeating what those who have claimed responsibility for the bombings in Spain said was the reason they carried out that despicable act." And they also say we are the devil; should you repeat that?
This man was never the stuff of the presidency. Thank goodness the voters are so smart. free-download motion-DV-Studio
AOsmell
: John Battelle tells Time Warner to spin off AOL already.
And while we're telling them what to do I just want to make sure -- as a long-suffering shareholder -- that they won't allow one single expense-account meal at the $300-$500-per-head (plus drinks, tax tip) restaurant in their expensive new HQ. Not one, boys. free-download motion-DV-Studio
Writing for your audience... or not
: A commentor below raised a cosmic weblog issue when he (or is it she?) asked whether I know who my audience is. free-download motion-DV-Studio
That was said in exasperation at my daily Stern reports and so I'll deal with that before I rise to the cosmic question. The commenter's implication, of course, is that my audience doesn't like Stern or what I'm saying about him -- and issues of free speech -- and is upset that I haven't changed my mind to agree with them. And so I should just cease and desist. But I won't. I've liked Stern for years. I am an absolutist in regards to free speech and the Constitution's prohibition of government control of speech. And I am appalled and frightened by the orgy of Talibanism coming out of Congress and the government now. I believe this is a critically important issue. And, in fact, many of my readers agree (I've been getting a lot of supportive links and email). So, to answer your question: No, I'm not going to shut up about Stern. If you don't like him, change the station. If you don't like my posts about him, scroll. If you don't like me, click away. I'm staying on the Stern story. free-download motion-DV-Studio
But the question this raises is really bigger than just Howard Stern and so and I'll rephrase it:free-download motion-DV-Studio
Should webloggers adjust what they say based on what their audiences want? free-download motion-DV-Studio
Or: What is the proper relationship of webloggers to their publics? free-download motion-DV-Studio
Now if you are trying to cover a subject, that's fairly obvious: Marketing Wonk covers marketing; LostRemote covers TV; Corante's Many2Many covers social software. That is their compact with their publics: You know what you're going to get when you click there.free-download motion-DV-Studio
But personal weblogs are different, no? My weblog is a representation of me and my thinking. It is my avatar. I am, therefore I blog; I blog, therefore I am. free-download motion-DV-Studio
In discussion about getting advertising on weblogs, the fear that is often raised (it was raised in my comments just the other day) is that bloggers will bend to the will of advertisers -- or even just to the fear of what those advertisers would dislike -- and that would rob them of their credibility, their honesty. free-download motion-DV-Studio
So if I change what I am saying to bend to the will of the public, my public, am I being false? If I see that something gets traffic and I do more of it to get more traffic, am I whoring myself for links? If I change my mind about an issue -- say, Stern and free speech -- to ingratiate myself to my public and not drive them away, am I living a lie? free-download motion-DV-Studio
It's often said that a mark of art is that artists create art for themselves, not their publics. free-download motion-DV-Studio
Stop: Step away from that mouse. Don't click on the "comment" link yet. I am not saying that blogs are art. free-download motion-DV-Studio
But I am saying that making this personal makes a difference. That defines the mission. If you go to PaidContent, you get paid content. If you go to Buzzmachine, you get Jarvis. Love him or leave him, you get Jarvis. That is my mission and the compact I make with my public: I am WYSIWYG. free-download motion-DV-Studio
In fact, that is one of the first lessons I learned doing a blog (see the post below for another): I had to be as open as I was honest. And that meant I started saying things publicly that violated my training as a journalist. I spent much of my life hiding my own opinions. But here, in this two-way medium, I learned that I had to be transparent (or, to really mess up this metaphor, my audience would be able to see through my attempt not to be). I had to give you some context for my perspective and my history. My personal experience on 9/11 had life-changing impact on my views of war and politics and so I had to be reveal that. free-download motion-DV-Studio
And the net result of all this is that I learned not to be frightened of transparency (see, again, that post below). In fact, I came to embrace transparency and believe that in this new media world of relationships transparency becomes necessary to build credibility and show trust and -- most of all -- show respect. free-download motion-DV-Studio
And so, in the end, if you like me and what I say and how I say it -- or like arguing with me or like interacting with the public I attract -- wonderful. If you don't, well, there's not much I can do about it. This is the only me I've got. free-download motion-DV-Studio
So, no, I can't shift what I think and thus say for an audience anymore than I can for an advertiser (or the government). Bloggers have to be true to themselves or they live a lie -- no, they blog a lie. free-download motion-DV-Studio
Transparency
: I was digging into the State of the News Media report, already much-linked, and found this nugget about the relationship of news media to its public: The problem is a disconnection between the public and the news media over motive. Journalists believe they are working in the public interest and are trying to be fair and independent in that cause. This is their sense of professionalism.
The public thinks these journalists are either lying or deluding themselves. The public believes that news organizations are operating largely to make money and that the journalists who work for these organizations are primarily motivated by professional ambition and self-interest. I believe that if you took some of that "public" and sat them down in a bar with some of those from "news media," they'd all in all end up liking ... or perhaps respecting ... or at least not disdaining ... and maybe better understanding each other. The problem is that there is a separation between the "news media" and its "public." free-download motion-DV-Studio
That is perhaps the greatest lesson I have learned in weblogs; it was the first lesson I writing this blog: I had a new relationship with my "public." (And I'll quit the obnoxious quote marks now.) free-download motion-DV-Studio
The public spoke; it argued; it agreed; it disagreed; it could be friendly; it could be generous; it could be trollish; it had names. But I now had a relationship with my public I'd never had before. And that public had a relationship with me it never could have before, when I was merely printed on paper: a two-way relationship. free-download motion-DV-Studio
You think I'm going to say that blogs are going to solve all this and if everybody just had a blog (or sat in a bar together) we'd all get along. free-download motion-DV-Studio
Fooled ya. No, I'm just arguing the virtues of transparency. At Bloggercon last year, the audience demanded -- or at least suggested strongly -- transparency from Len Apcar and the New York Times; but Apcar, as I remember, was openly skittish about the idea of sharing the process of news. At that time, that seemed at least reasonable; why have people fight with you over what you almost did when they'are already fighting with you over what you did?free-download motion-DV-Studio
But when you are not transparent, people will assume their definition of the worst. If you are transparent, you show the effort you put behind trying to serve them and you also give them the respect to include them in the process. That is a moral of weblogs. It's a moral the news business needs to figure out.free-download motion-DV-Studio
: UPDATE: As Hypergene says, transparency is also served when news sources get blogs and tell their sides of stories directly. Witness Mark Cuban's blog, on which he answers newspaper writers. free-download motion-DV-Studio
Mr. Blog goes to Washington
: So it appears Ed Cone is seriously considering running for Congress. Frankly, I thought it was just one of those blog moments but he's weighing the pros and cons. He'd be good. I fear he's too nice and too decent, but we could use more of that. free-download motion-DV-Studio
Jersey bloggers: Come one, come all
: NJ.com's Jersey blogger MeetUp is tonight in South Orange. Come all. free-download motion-DV-Studio
Peanut gallery
: Ross Mayfield is putting up SocialText eventspace for PC Forum and it's open to all of us. You don't have to pay the admission fee (but you also don't get the nice Arizona weather) and still join in.
During the Mediamorphisis confab, I quite enjoyed joining in from the peanut gallery, on their blog and mine (seeing whether I could start a meme or get mentioned there). PC Forum is the big time.free-download motion-DV-Studio
The Daily Stern
: THE TODAY SHOW'S MADE-UP NEWS: Saw the most ludicrous segment on The Today Show this morning, arguing that America is turning wholesome. It was so made up. The evidence: Right-wing bore Michael Medved says people are into religion (that's a new view) and Jay Leno beats David Letterman (and where does Leno air?). Stern airs the segment later and says, "Why don't they point out I beat all my competitors."
After the say-nothing "report," adman Donny Deutsch stands up for free speech against right-wing blatherer Peggy Noonan.
No story. No reporting. No evidence. No point.
Unjournalism.free-download motion-DV-Studio
ON THE RIGHT SIDE: Here's a story on the representatives who voted against the House's indecent indecency bill. ...for Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) the issue created barely a ripple.
"I go all over this city and all over this district. ... No one, but no one, asked me one thing about it. No one said one word," Lewis said Friday, a day after voting against a bill to greatly boost fines for indecent programming ... : ONE MAN'S INDECENCY: A Kansas senator wrote to Viacom head Mel Karmazin telling him to take Stern off the air and Karmazin replied regarding the show that caused Clear Channel to pull Stern: "Our editors made the good faith judgment that the references which aired were not graphic, patently offensive descriptions of sexual activity." free-download motion-DV-Studio
: IT'S NOT ABOUT HOWARD; IT'S ABOUT US: I forgot to mention this from Howard's show yesterday but it's a good thing, because Tony Pierce did a fear better job reporting and analyzing it than I could have: howard stern was right this morning. rolling stone wants to put him on their cover and write about his problems with the fcc and at first he was going to do it, but then he realized that this wasnt His problem, it's Everyones problem. for 20 years hes been doing his show and the public has been eating it up.free-download motion-DV-Studio
nothing that he does is obscene. it's about sex a lot of the times, but that doesnt instantly make it obscene. free-download motion-DV-Studio
the radio waves are the public's airwaves. how public is it when one company owns 80% of it? how public is it when a few republicans are dictating what can be broadcast? how public is it when the number one broadcaster is suddenly deemed obscene the same month he comes out against the president of the united states?free-download motion-DV-Studio
i know a lot of my elected officials read this. free-download motion-DV-Studio
and some officials, like senator clinton read this too.free-download motion-DV-Studio
if you fools dont start fighting the repubs on this issue and on the issue of free speech and of the issue of censorship and of the issue of assholes bulldozing their quote unquote morals all over my shit im going to not only vote them out but vote you out too.free-download motion-DV-Studio
where is the main democratic voice standing up and saying, oh no you didn't!free-download motion-DV-Studio
do i have to elect the audience of the jerry springer show to run my senate? Bravo, Tony. free-download motion-DV-Studio
: INCONSISTENT: Greg Ross from GoKart records sends an eloquent defense of Stern and attack on Clear Channel to the German site Ox: But the standard Clear Channels applies to radio does not appear to apply to some of its other lucrative businesses, like the concert venues it owns all over the country. This summer, performers like Blink-182, the Ozzfest with Ozzy Osbourne, Britney Spears, Ludacris, and Slayer will be performing at numerous Clear Channel-owned concert venues.
Before I continue, let me clarify, no criticism of the performers above is intended; rather I wish to draw attention to the hypocrisy of Clear Channel’s recent decision.
Blink-182, a band who has a very young teen fan base, has been to known to perform naked onstage and sing songs with lyrics such as “It's Christmas eve and I've only wrapped two f****** presents - And I hate, hate, hate your guts - I hate, hate, hate your guts - And I'll never talk to you again - unless your dad will **** me ***... And on and on with many a bleepable example.
Clear Channel has painted itself into a moral corner.
It now says it has a zero tolerance policy toward "indecency" and its "local" standards. So if Bubba is fired from its stations because he was fined, why wasn't Elliott in the Morning? If Elliott was fined and fired, why did they drop Stern when he wasn't fined? If Bubba's and Howard's words -- mild, mild words in comparison to this Ox post -- then shouldn't Clear Channel enforce local standards and muzzle and bleep and fire most of its very lucrative concert stars? If Clear Channel and its communities are offended in one incidence, aren't they in all? If this is about Clear Channel's decision -- and not Congress' and the White House's -- wouldn't Clear Channel enforce its new zero tolerance policy consistently? Wouldn't Clear Channel go out of the music business? Huh? free-download motion-DV-Studio
: THE ABC STORY: Here's a story based on a supportive Good Morning America report on Stern.free-download motion-DV-Studio
: REQUIRED READING: HowardStern.com is now updating its required reading daily. Oh, how they need a blog. free-download motion-DV-Studio
: PREVIOUS DAILY STERN POSTS: here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here.
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March 16, 2004
Gaining something in translation
: Spiegel is now going to translate articles of international interest into English. That's the power of the international Internet: A German magazine wants an audience over here. [via David's Medienkritik, which will no longer be the only source for English translations of Spiegel... which could just be why they did it]free-download motion-DV-Studio
Spin the numbers
: Yesterday, I noted that the BBC -- even the BBC -- found and lead with positive notes from a poll it took in Iraq: "The poll suggests that Iraqis are happier than they were before the invasion, optimistic about the future and opposed to violence."
The New York Times reported on the same poll this way: "Ambivalence From Iraqis in Poll on War."
Spin.free-download motion-DV-Studio
: Wednesday, The Times reports more polling from its glass-half-empty perspective. In some predominantly Muslim countries, where negative attitudes toward American policy have prevailed for years, disapproval of the United States persisted over the past year, although at a less intense level that Mr. Kohut described as anger rather than hatred.
Still, the survey found, people in Jordan, Pakistan and Morocco tended to view other outsiders with almost the same degree of ill will and distrust as they did the United States. Well, gee, couldn't one also say that this year of all years, following the war in Iraq, isn't it amazing that Muslim countries' attitudes toward America improved? free-download motion-DV-Studio
Worth it
: Norm watches Salam Pax talk to people in Iraq about the war, a year later, and he concludes: It is not going to be easy, but it was totally worth it. free-download motion-DV-Studio
Free Martha
: Elizabeth Spiers has the letter Martha Stewart sent to friends soliciting notes testifying to her character before her sentencing: Many people have inquired as to whether they can help by writing to Judge Cedarbaum about my sentence. I am advised by my lawyers that it is appropriate to do so, and that they believe Judge Cedarbaum will conscientiously read everything sent to her. If you would be so kind as to write such a letter, please include your opinion of my character, my work ethic, my integrity and my probity. And damned fine creampuffs.
Seriously, though, the woman has been punished enough. Sentence her to fine and community service and let's be done with it. free-download motion-DV-Studio
Coming home to roost
: French President Jacques Chirac, meeting with German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, says that "all democracies are in danger of possible terrorist attack."
Welcome to the real world, Jacques. [via the Sueddeutsche Zeitung, auf Deutsch]free-download motion-DV-Studio
: London's police chief says a terrorist attack on the city is "inevitable." Sir John agreed with Mr Livingstone, who said: "It would be miraculous if, with all the terrorist resources arranged against us, terrorists did not get through, and given that some are prepared to give their own lives, it would be inconceivable that someone does not get through to London." ...
"This is not just about the railways, the underground," he said. "It's about buses, roads, pubs, nightclubs and the like. Remember al-Qaida attacked a nightclub in Bali." : Meanwhile, in Germany, liberals are pushing to create a National Guard to protect against terrorist attacks. [via Bild, auf Deutsch] free-download motion-DV-Studio
: At the same time, Bild lists the most dangerous Muslims in Germany. Keep in mind that some Germans have been less than fond of Turks and other outsiders.
After Madrid, beware of ethnic attacks on Muslims (and not just Jews now) and not just in Germany. free-download motion-DV-Studio
Star blogger: Mark Cuban
: Jason Calacanis adds blogs the way a bunny adds generations and so I wander over frequently see what's new and what's new now: A Mark Cuban blog. So far, he's writing about his Mavericks and his TV show; I hope he also writes about HDTV and what it's like to be so friggin' rich.
Next: The Trump Gates Blog.free-download motion-DV-Studio
Wake up and smell the spin
: A member of the team that wrote the much-linked study on the shrinking news biz (see below), Dante Chinni, writes a lament in the Christian Science Monitor that misses the point by a mile: So it is in 21st century America, where choice reigns even when it comes to what sort of news you are looking for. Don't like what you're hearing about the world on CNN? Try Fox. Is The Washington Post too conservative? Tune in Air America.
Of course, on its face, there is nothing wrong with any of this - though Fox's "fair and balanced" masquerading is at best good for a few laughs and at worst painfully dishonest. Opinion journalism has long been considered an important part of presenting a full picture of the news....
But we're seeing something different today. Traditional old-line outlets are being abandoned....
Where are people turning? To smaller outlets that allow for more customizable news, and often to sources that validate viewpoints more than illuminate the larger world.
Opinion journalism is becoming less a way to round out the average American's news meal and more its main course. We've been living in the world of instant spin for some time, but we're now entering the world where the line between news and spin is vanishing. And of all the disquieting trends in journalism, this may be the most troubling because it touches on this country's ability to make decisions as a people.
Everyone has opinions, but for those opinions to be worth something, they have to be based on facts so that we can come up with an accepted version of reality. That's how democracy works. Some of the media are entering an age where facts are based upon opinion. And reality? Well, that all depends on whom you get your news from. He's fighting his audience -- his customers, his public, his people -- instead of listening to them.
There are reasons they're doing this. Could be that they're bored by news. Could be that they don't find news, as he defines it, useful to their daily life. Could be that they like hearing transparent spin (rather than attempts to hide it). Could be that they believe news and spin have always been inseperable. Could be. free-download motion-DV-Studio
The father of WYSIWYG
: I was there the day John Seybold coined WYSIWYG.
I was at an early publishing-industry seminar in California run by Seybold and he kept hearing us say we didn't want to have to enter all kinds of codes and not know what became of them until type spat out of a big photocompositor (now there's a word you don't hear every decade). We wanted to see it on our screens.
The gentle and brilliant Mr. Seybold got up and said that what he heard everybody demanding was "what you see is what you get." He looked skyward as he calculated the acronym. W-Y-S-I-W-Y-G. He smiled an impish smile. And then he carefully prounounced it: "whiz-zee-wig."
And more than jargon was born. A way of creating and looking at content was given birth. I say this led to new ways to publish content in print and that led to computerized mark-up codes and it led to Quark and it led to the idea that anybody could create content and it led to HTML and it led to the browser and it led to the weblog, with a few detours and scenic stops inbetween.
WYSIWYG changed the world in its own way. And John Seybold said it first.
John Seybold died this week at 88. He is survived by some brilliant children and an industry and a new way of looking at the world. free-download motion-DV-Studio
Shark, jumped
: Didya notice that few seemed to notice the Bloggies this year? free-download motion-DV-Studio
Truth
: Terry Teachout fact-checks Tim Robbins' ass. free-download motion-DV-Studio
Jersey blog MeetUp!
: Come one, come all. NJ.com is playing host (well, you'll get a coffee) for a Jersey blog MeetUp. Details here. I'll be there (but don't let that discourage you). I understand a certain local NY Times writer will be there. I'm sure hearty souls will abandon to the nearest bar for green beer afterwards.
Come even and especially if you are not a blogger but you're curious. The point of this is to spread the blogging gospel and get more people blogging locally. The more the merrier!
And leave a comment here if you can come. free-download motion-DV-Studio
Organized
: I'm disorganized. So I like things that organize me. Yesterday, I started testing OnFolio to save web pages and more (so far so good). Today, Steve Outing sents us to another tool, NetSnippets. Damn. Now I need an organizational tool for my organizational tools. free-download motion-DV-Studio
A nation of Neville Chamberlains
: David Brooks tiptoes up to the line -- "I am trying not to think harshly of the Spanish" -- but then he speaks the harsh truth about the Spanish election: What is the Spanish word for appeasement
There are millions of Americans, in and out of government, who believe the swing Spanish voters are shamefully trying to seek a separate peace in the war on terror.
I'm resisting that conclusion, because I don't know what mix of issues swung the Spanish election during those final days. But I do know that reversing course in the wake of a terrorist attack is inexcusable. I don't care what the policy is. You do not give terrorists the chance to think that their methods work. You do not give them the chance to celebrate victories. When you do that, you make the world a more dangerous place, for others and probably for yourself.
We can be pretty sure now that this will not be the last of the election-eve massacres. Al Qaeda will regard Spain as a splendid triumph. After all, how often have murderers altered a democratic election? And having done it once, why stop now? Why should they not now massacre Italians, Poles, Americans and Brits?
Al Qaeda has now induced one nation to abandon the Iraqi people. Well said. This echoes what I said in response to Steven Johnson, below. free-download motion-DV-Studio
Every citizen of every civilized country in the world has an obligation to every other citizen to fight united against terrorists. free-download motion-DV-Studio
Brooks goes onto affirm that the same thing would not happen in an election here: Does anyone doubt that Americans and Europeans have different moral and political cultures? Yesterday the chief of the European Commission, Romano Prodi, told Italy's La Stampa, "It is clear that using force is not the answer to resolving the conflict with terrorists." Does he really think capitulation or negotiation works better? Can you imagine John Kerry or George Bush saying that?
Nor is America itself without blame. Where was our State Department? Why hasn't Colin Powell spent the past few years crisscrossing Europe so that voters there would at least know the arguments for the liberation of Iraq, would at least have some accurate picture of Americans, rather than the crude cowboy stereotype propagated by the European media? Why does the Bush administration make it so hard for its friends? Why is it so unable to reach out?
This is a watershed event. It will change how Al Qaeda thinks about the world. It will change how Europeans see the world. It will constrain American policy for years to come. And like it or not, al Qaeda has crowned us the leaders of the civilized world. free-download motion-DV-Studio
: Or look at it another way: We're headed into an era of worldwide isolationism. free-download motion-DV-Studio
Cheap beer, expensive bottles
: Glenn Reynolds looks at all the whither-the-news-business talk yesterday, inspired by the latest study on the topic, and concludes: Back during the 1970s, a lot of big American beer makers -- Schlitz is the most famous example -- cut their quality to save money. They did so in tiny steps, each imperceptible on its own, but the eventual result was that a lot of people suddenly woke up and said "this beer's no good anymore." (What made things worse for them was that they were cutting quality just as consumers started caring more about it.) Beer drinkers went off in search of other brews, and some of those brands disappeared from the shelves.
It seems to me that the news business has the same problem. They've been cutting reporting budgets and foreign bureaus, relying more on news services and "filler" material, and tolerating a much higher degree of bias and general sloppiness in reporting, just as their audience has learned to tell the difference between good and bad journalism. The result is that a lot of people think their beer's no good any more.
I remember when Schlitz tried to address this problem with a new Master Brewer and the slogan "taste my Schlitz." It didn't work for them. Now, a generation later, they're trying to make a comeback with a better product, and the hope that consumers have forgotten the watery and unsatisfying taste of the old one. Will the news business have to wait as long? And can it? : But Glenn, I bet you couldn't find a newspaper editor or TV news director in the country who would not join in your chorus of complaint about lowered news budgets. free-download motion-DV-Studio
The problem is revenue. The Internet has created tons of new competition not just for news but, more importantly, also for revenue: Monster, Craig's List, companies' own sites. At the same time, Walmart -- and Amazon -- have had a big impact on local retail and thus local advertising. So, looking at this from the business perspective -- and, yes, this is a business or it's dead -- the answer, clearly, is not to keep throwing more money (you don't have) into news budgets.free-download motion-DV-Studio
Instead, what I see through the lense of this new medium is the need to redefine the news business.free-download motion-DV-Studio
First, we have to admit that most news is a commodity and, thus, it's not worth wasting money on what everybody else has anyway. That's especially easy to fix in the TV news business: Everybody doesn't need a camera at the press conference; they can share the image. Everybody doesn't need to cover the same events; you can get it off the wire. News organizations need to be able to concentrate instead of what makes them uniquely valuable to their audiences. And that's not necessarily what wins awards; sometimes it's simply the best citizen service.free-download motion-DV-Studio
Second, we have to admit that many people get their news elsewhere (on the Internet, on TV, even from comedy shows now) and some people dont' give a damn about the news and you can't make them give a damn no matter how hard you try. So that means we need to look at what the best news products are for our audiences -- and sometimes, they won't include news. You may get home from the office fully informed about the world thanks to stealing time from the boss and reading the Internet and so what you really want is a kickass sports show or a great entertainment paper. That's news, too, if it tells you want you want to know.free-download motion-DV-Studio
Third, we have to look at new sources of news and information -- emphasis on information. That is where citizens' media comes in. The people have tons of information; they are the real source. Now we have the tools to harnass that. (Insert spiel about the people now having a printing press thanks to weblogs et al here.) So we need to investigate and build a new relationship with the people formerly known as the audience and find ways to help them share information; that is a new and important role for news organizations if they can figure it out.free-download motion-DV-Studio
Fourth, we need to recognize that though reporting usually requires special resources and sometimes requires special skills, commentary and opinion require neither and anybody can -- and should -- do it. Thus, thanks to those same everybody-has-the-power-of-the-printing-press tools, we can open the news business up a tremendous new diversity of opinion and viewpoint from the citizens.free-download motion-DV-Studio
So we create a new relationship with the audience with new kinds of service and new expectations... and, necessarily, lower costs. That's what I hope this new medium not only necessitates but enables. free-download motion-DV-Studio
: See also this Rob Enderle column on the Mediamorphisis confab last week. He ends up concluding that a merger of news organizations and bloggers can create a generation of superbloggers. If I understand what he's saying, I think I disagree. The power of bloggers is that we are distributed; we are; we don't need to be super. free-download motion-DV-Studio
The Daily Stern
: SANITIZED FOR YOUR PROTECTION: Stern said this morning that his company is threatening to make him stop taking phone calls and even make him prerecord the show a day before, just so it can be sterilized and homogenized. He even mentioned them threatening to move him to another daypart.
Many people have speculated that Infinity won't let Stern go.
But I'll just bet he has a creative-control clause in his contract and that will be his out.
And if he is suddenly liable for up to $500,000 per day personally, you can bet that a smart lawyer can get him out of any contract that puts him in a position of such liability.
I'm not selling my Sirius stock.free-download motion-DV-Studio
: QUIET BEFORE THE STORM: Things are quiet on the Stern front today. But expect them to heat up again later this week when the Senate passes its indecent indecency bill.free-download motion-DV-Studio
: WELCHERS: Howard said Clear Channel is trying to stiff him for the money they owe him on his contract. He'll fight in court. He'll win. free-download motion-DV-Studio
: SATELLITE DOC: Says Doc: I want so see Howard on Sirius for two reasons: Tom Reilly and NPR, both of whom/which are on Sirius and not on the larger XM.
Me, I'd just love to see Howard start webcasting, finding the best way to stay inside the rules imposed by the Library of Congress rather than by the FCC, and leading the way to vitalizing an industry that was strangled in its cradle and left for dead by the LOC and its Copyright Office, acting as puppets for the RIAA. I guarantee you'd see webcasts to cars, somehow, within three years. : REPUBLICANS ARE PAYING ATTENTION: Even the GOP USA site is covering what Stern says. Because it matters. free-download motion-DV-Studio
: THE VOICE OF YOUTH: YM surveyed readers and two thirds side with Stern and free speech. free-download motion-DV-Studio
: PREVIOUS STERN POSTS: here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here.
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March 15, 2004
 Even the BBC
: Even the BBC is forced to admit that things are better in Iraq. The people of Iraq said so:
An opinion poll carried out in Iraq will make good reading for US President George W Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
The poll suggests that Iraqis are happier than they were before the invasion, optimistic about the future and opposed to violence.
The poll, of more than 2,500 adults, was commissioned by the BBC in association with other international broadcasters.
It suggests that the reporting of the daily attacks on the occupying forces in Iraq could be obscuring another picture.
This opinion poll gives a glimpse into the real life of Iraqis, who appear to be overwhelmingly pre-occupied with bread and butter issues - whether the lights go on or not, and the restoration of the economy.
Seventy percent said that things were going well or quite well in their lives, while only 29% felt things were bad.
And 56% said that things were better now than they were before the war.
Almost half (49%) believed the invasion of Iraq by the US-led coalition was right, although 41% felt that the invasion "humiliated Iraq".
More than three quarters (79%) want Iraq to remain united, and only 20% want it to become an Islamic state. free-download motion-DV-Studio
Divorce
: I can't imagine it's easy to maintain a group blog. I would be very difficult to live with, what with my blog snoring and all. Al Giordano just left BopNews. free-download motion-DV-Studio
The perfect blogging tools
: Lots of people gave lots of great suggestions in response to Dave Winer's call for blog tool dreams. Lisa Williams did a great job compiling them. Then more folks compiled. And now we need a compilation of the compilations. free-download motion-DV-Studio
Hermit
: For years, I played the hermit and never went to conferences. Then I went to a few and enjoyed meeting all the folks I'd been reading in blogs. So I tortured myself wondering whether I should go to more. But the hermit in me won out and I've been staying home, watching the conferences online and even joining in from a very distant peanut gallery. Judging from the reviews of the latest conferences, I'm glad I stayed home with my wi-fi and electric plugs and nobody to tell me where I can and can't take pictures or blog or wander. free-download motion-DV-Studio
Will our election protect us?
: I wonder whether our upcoming election will protect us from al Qaeda attacks.
They obviously wanted to affect Spain's elections -- and succeeded, getting rid of the Conservative government allied with Bush's war effort.
But if they want to get rid of Bush, the worst thing they could do is attack here. I do not believe that American voters would react to an attack -- like the Spanish -- and blame the guy the terrorists blame. Quite to the contrary, an attack would make us angry and defiant and would send us toward Bush, especially since he is still the one acting tougher on terrorism.
And the terrorists are not idiots, politically. So if they want to show they can wage influence in world politics, they are more likely, unfortunately, to go after America's other allies. God forbid.free-download motion-DV-Studio
: But even the anti-war Guardian says that an attack in England would not help the terrorists get rid of Bush-ally Blair: ...ministers are privately calculating the prospects for a "security election" in Britain in which a similar attack may be attempted....
But Labour's leadership believes that an attack similar to Madrid would have the effect of driving British voters, more evenly divided on the war, behind strong and established leadership.
With the Conservatives (unlike Spain's socialists) pro-war, the Liberal Democrats may benefit most from anti-Blair voting.
The Tory defence spokesman, Nicholas Soames, backed the Blair analysis. "In times of trouble, you don't want change, you want the status quo." conceded another senior opposition MP. free-download motion-DV-Studio
Good-bye and thank you
: Robert Zangas was working in Iraq as a civilian -- after having served there as a Marine reservist -- to help teach Iraqis how to be journalists. He was killed while on a road with a fellow CPA employee and interpreter.
Robert Zangas was also a blogger. Here is the last post of a generous, optimistic, hard-working man. I know it is not my money that I am giving away and I am not interested in receiving thanks. But it points out to the fact that this is a society that is in desperate need of everything. It is like pouring a cup of water out in a dry desert. The water disappears and you are left with the feeling of “did it do any good?” Sometimes the answer is “yes.” Sometimes the answer is “no.” Sometimes you wait for the flower to grow. I don’t mean to sound depressed because I am not. I am enjoying this work immensely. It is very gratifying…as long as the flowers grow eventually. I have hope that they will. Robert Zangas, 44, was a father of three.
God bless him. [via Robert & Lt. Smash] free-download motion-DV-Studio
Satblog
: Steve MacLaughlin has a satellite radio blog and now he has a big story to watch in Howard Stern. free-download motion-DV-Studio
You know it's business when it's in the Wall St. Journal
: Advertising on weblogs -- and Henry Copeland's BlogAds -- get a well-deserved story in the Wall Street Journal today. The Chandler campaign is evidence of the latest step in the evolution of the Internet. Blogs, once derided as solipsistic exercises by self-important nobodies, are starting to go commercial as their readership grows.
The trend is in its early stages; big advertisers like Coke and Procter & Gamble aren't yet hawking their wares on blogs. Indeed, much of the advertising is found on politically oriented blogs, which are experiencing a spike in readership from the presidential election. Many people wonder if the blog ad boomlet will outlast the election.
But other Internet institutions have had similarly modest origins; recall that eBay started out as a place to trade Beanie Babies and Pez dispensers. And it's no surprise that as blogs grow in popularity, they are beginning to attract advertisers. I am confident that weblogs and citizens' media are going to be a tremendous medium for marketing and will make real money for their proprieters. It always takes time for advertisers and agencies to catch up -- hell, they're still catching up to the Internet... and cable -- but catch up, they will. I've written here frequently that we still need some infrastructure to support marketing (see, for example, yesterday's note on RSS and measurement) but once it is in place, this will explode. free-download motion-DV-Studio
The tactics and morality of support
: My friend Steven Johnson says he wants to make clear that a reason why he and others opposed the war in Iraq was because it could fire up al Qaeda and cause an attack like Spain's tragic 3/11. (He emailed me saying I was his imaginary debating opponent as he wrote the post; so I'll make it real). Says Steven: With the elections yesterday giving control of the Spanish government to the Socialists, over the coalition of the willing's Popular Party, we're going to see a wave of posts and op-eds explaining how the 3/11 terrorist attacks threw the election to the party "soft on terror," thereby allowing Al Qaeda to get exactly what they wanted: a regime that would be "friendly" to them. No doubt a version of this argument will be trotted out again and again during the runup to the 2004 election here....
This formulation needs to be drilled into people's heads: we opposed the Iraq war because we predicted that this particular engagement would lead to more Al Qaeda strikes, not less. (We supported the Afghanistan war because we felt it would, on the whole, lead to less.) In other words, we thought that invading Iraq was ultimately "friendly" to Al Qaeda: hard on Hussein and his secular dictatorship, but soft on the shadowy, nationless networks of Islamo-fascism. So when the Spanish vote out the Popular Party, or the US votes out the Bush Administration, it's not that we're trying to give the terrorists a break. It's that we think the Bush Administration has been playing directly into the hands of Al Qaeda for the past two years, enraging young Arab men with elective wars that do nothing to combat Bin Laden and his minions directly. I have many problems with this line of thinking for it is just so much thin moral soup. free-download motion-DV-Studio
First, I do not find it acceptable to decide not to oust Saddam Hussein because we're afraid it would get terrorists' dander up. You can have other reasons to say we shouldn't have invaded Iraq (I don't), but that's not one of them. That is allowing the terrorists to manage us. We cannot find ourselves in a position of deciding what we should and should not do in the world based on what bin Laden might do. free-download motion-DV-Studio
Second, I also find it unacceptable to leave millions of people suffering under a tyrant we should have ousted a decade ago just because we are afraid of terrorists. free-download motion-DV-Studio
Third, by this logic, Great Britain would not and should not have entered World War II to defend Europe against Hitler. Nor should we have. Don't want to piss off Hitler. Don't want to piss of bin Laden. Same difference.free-download motion-DV-Studio
Fourth, by this same logic, no one should ever support us and we should support no one. The U.N. is pretty much useless now but you might as well shut it down completely and turn it into condos, because any nation that supports another when it is attacked is a damned fool. So no one should have supported us after 9/11 and we should have not supported Kuwait or the people of the former Yugoslavia. That's clearly unacceptable.free-download motion-DV-Studio
Fifth, there is absolutely no basis for the belief that if we had not invaded Iraq, 3/11 would not have happened. You could try to argue that if Spain had not helped us, they might have picked another country but, again, that is the clearest definition of shirking moral responsibility (aw, let 'em bomb England) and, besides, bin Laden does, remember, have this thing about the Crusades. free-download motion-DV-Studio
Now as to the Spanish elections: Yes, the terrorists had a clear impact on the outcome of the Spanish vote and, as I said yesterday, that may have been the result of the ruling Conservatives' self-centered insitence on trying to blame this on ETA. But having the vote is itself a victory against the terrorists. free-download motion-DV-Studio
And as to our own elections: If -- God forbid! -- there is another attack in this country before our elections aimed at steering them, I would not call either possible outcome a victory for the terrorists. A free election is a defeat for them. But before that election, this is why it is now all the more important to have a strong debate on how best to protect us against this terror. And the last thing I want to hear Kerry do is echo this logic that he will protect us by trying not to piss off terrorists. free-download motion-DV-Studio
The best way to piss off terrorists is to hunt them down and exterminate them and I want to hear Kerry and Bush battle for the right to the title of Toughest on Terrorism. I want the President of the United States to piss off terrorists as much as he possibly can. I want to see him continue to put pressure on countries that harbor and grow terrorists (read: Libya). I want to see him bring democracy to the Middle East, for that is the best way to stop bringing up generations of pissed off victims (I am a Tom Friedman liberal hawk). free-download motion-DV-Studio
But let's be clear: Being soft on terrorism or on Saddam Hussein would not have prevented the tragedy of 3/11.free-download motion-DV-Studio
: Olivier Travers says it far more eloquently than I do: you can't have your "Iraq is not connected to terrorism" cake and eat it too. Amen. free-download motion-DV-Studio
The Daily Stern
: UNCLEAR CHANNEL: Hmmm. Clear Channel gets hit for a quarter million of fines for Elliot in the Morning... but he isn't fired. Bubba's fined and fired. Howard is not fined and he's fired. Elliot is fined but he's not.free-download motion-DV-Studio
: SIRIUS: Roger Friedman says he's heard that Howard Stern visited the offices of Sirius satellite radio last week. "If Stern takes this turn, he'll be remembered for launching an entire medium."free-download motion-DV-Studio
: SATELLITE JITTERS: Hei Lun at Begging to Differ reports that what with all the talk about Howard Stern and others jumping from broadcast to satellite, broadcast is getting nervous. Howard Stern's threat of going to satellite radio is being taken seriously.
On Friday, then again this morning on a different radio station, I heard two different versions of a radio ad against satellite radio. In the ads, people who are supposedly former subscribers of satellite radio talk about how much it stinks....
The second ad is amusing in an odd way because it spend more than half the time having people complain about foul language. Someone complains about hearing swearing in songs when normally it's bleeped out on regular radio (yeah, people love it when radio edits the song of their favorite bands); another person talks about how he often forgot to change the dial when his kid gets in the car so the kid hears all the swearing (forego satellite radio--for the children!). Then another guy talks about the cost of having one in his car, then having to pay for it again on his wife's car. The ads both end with "a message from your hometown stations". The audience who'd switch with Stern wouldn't be concerned about dirty words. I'm sympathetic with the problem of being less portable (I want to listen to satellite in my car, in my home, while running, in my office... that will be tough). But anything in the cause of free speech.... free-download motion-DV-Studio
: UPDATE: Bubba the Love Sponge, fired shock jock, does an Internet webcast. free-download motion-DV-Studio
AFTERNOON UPDATE: KCRW, the LA public radio station, rescinds its firing of Sandra Tsing Loh for accidentally letting the f word out of the air; she issues a joint statement saying she chooses not to return to the station. Face-saving all around. LA Observed has the news.
Sandra has her say on Cathy's blog: "My decision is to never set foot upon the toxic soil of KCRW again as my personal statement about the poor way I was treated," she added. "Aside from that, I wish KCRW the very best." PREVIOUS STERN POSTS: here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here.
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Addiction
: I had a panic attack last night. I posted to the blog and suddenly got one of those frightening error messages you dread, something about connections to MySQL not working through the Mars rover. I emailed half the world. I had trouble getting to sleep. I woke up before 5 this morning and have to admit I went to the email to see, with great relief and gratitude, that (a) Movable Type was nice enough to send me advice and (b) Hosting Matters fixed the MySQL problem (which, by the way, is why comments did not work for sometime last night... I'm hoping that various trolls feared it was their fault, but I doubt it). I am the poster child for a little knowledge being a dangerous thing.free-download motion-DV-Studio
March 14, 2004
The real human rights violation is terrorism
: Let's get this straight once and for all: The worst human rights violation of all is terrorism.
All the yammering about how terrorism leads to new security laws and that is a human rights violation misses the horribly obvious: Killing innocent people in their offices or commuter trains or buses or restaurants -- what could be more of a "human rights violation"?
Monday's Guardian says: Ironically, the annual human rights debate opens at the United Nations in New York today, a six-week session designed to place a spotlight on violations of political and social rights around the world. Both Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have rightly warned of the dangers of even liberal democracies, using the new series of terrorist atrocities, to justify abuses of criminal and civil justice systems. This is self-defeating and only helps the terrorist organisations to achieve their goals. What's so damned ironic about that? It would be ironic if the U.N. conference to end terrorism started today, right after another terrorist attack they did not one damned thing to prevent.
Self-defeating? It would be quite literally self-defeating not to do everything you can to prevent terrorism.
Priorities, people: We're at war. Allowing the bad guys to kill your own citizens is the clearest definition possible of losing. free-download motion-DV-Studio
: The Guardian is just filled with head-scratching goodies today. It also says with surprise that Labour is losing votes in the British Muslim community because of the war in Iraq. Wow, now that's news. free-download motion-DV-Studio
No blog, no conference
: New rule of life: If you don't allow blogging, I won't attend your conference. For that matter, if you don't have wi-fi, I won't go. SXSW relented but they should be ashamed of themselves that they thought they could forbid picture-taking and blogging and electricity, ferchrissakes. Frigging greek control freaks. If I'd arrived there after spending thousands, I'd have had a complete psycho fit. And ask anyone who has seen one, it's entertaining but not pretty. free-download motion-DV-Studio
Terrorism at the polls
: More's the pity that terrorism had an impact on the election in Spain: Spain's ruling conservatives were defeated on Sunday in general elections, as a heavy turnout of voters punished the government in the highly emotional aftermath of the Madrid train bombings in which 200 people were killed.
Interior Minister Angel Acebes said the opposition Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) had obtained 43.01 percent of the vote and won 164 seats in the 350-member Chamber of Deputies.
The ruling conservative Popular Party (PP), which was predicted to prevail a week ago, won only 148 seats, with 37.47 percent of the vote....
Acebes said more than 77 percent of the electorate turned out to vote, a high response reflecting the emotions caused by the deadly train massacre....
The PP of outgoing Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar apparently took a pasting because of its support for the United States in the invasion and occupation of Iraq.
Only a week ago, four public opinion polls predicted the Popular Party would win with a reduced majority.
But the bombings and a claim attributed to Al-Qaeda that they were revenge for Spain's support of American policy in Iraq touched off a wave of anger against the government. I'm certainly not well-versed on Spanish politics but I wonder whether the ruling Conservatives' insistence on blaming ETA even in the face of evidence pointing to Islamofascists also contributed to their defeat. In any case, it's a damned shame that terrorists can have an impact on the election and can help bring in the side they apparently wanted.
Let's just hope that anger in Spain will focus on the real target: Not the U.S., not the Conservative administration that joined with the U.S. in Iraq, but, of course, the evil bastards who murdered 200 innocents. free-download motion-DV-Studio
: UPDATE: Now is the time to say it again: The terrorists have won if....
The terrorists have won if they changed the course of a democracy... and made a nation lose its resolve to defeat terrorism. The terrorists have won if that happens.
It didn't happen here. It won't happen in Spain.
Terrorism will not prevail.free-download motion-DV-Studio
What RSS needs to do for the business of blogs
: RSS needs to do some important things to serve the business of blogs.free-download motion-DV-Studio
As I noted yesterday, my RSS file now gets more traffic than my HTML blog page. But, of course, that doesn't mean it gets more readers, since RSS aggregators check for updates frequently. I'd be eager to hear from RSS experts (which I'm certainly not!) on whether it can be made to do these things: free-download motion-DV-Studio
1. RSS feeds need to include a counting gif (visible or invisible) that can be tallied by stats programs when the feed is actually displayed (and, it's assumed, read). If it's not a counting gif but is something newer, cool. But it needs to be counted when displayed. free-download motion-DV-Studio
2. RSS readers/aggregators/web services need to display that gif (that is, display HTML) so it can be counted. (If RSS readers cannot or do not display HTML and thus cannot display the counting gif, then they should report themselves as nonHTML.)free-download motion-DV-Studio
3. Stats programs (including SiteMeter) need to be able to tally those RSS counting gifs.free-download motion-DV-Studio
4. If ads are served in RSS, then they will need to carry their own counting gifs so advertisers can verify their ads were displayed (an absolute minimum for serving ads in feeds). As noted here, advertisers demand flight audits.free-download motion-DV-Studio
5. Can RSS aggregators and associated clients support cookies? That will be important to count unique audience (and to target and personalize content and advertising).free-download motion-DV-Studio
Without all this, anyone who's trying to make money via web content will be disinclined to put up content on RSS or to put up complete content (they'll put up just heads to drive links back to HTML pages, but that's a pain for everyone). free-download motion-DV-Studio
I said at RSS Winterfest that I am looking at rearchitecting all the content on my day-job sites as feeds (read: RSS); I think it's the way to go. But RSS needs to be enabled for traffic and audience stats and auditing. free-download motion-DV-Studio
I now leave this to better minds than mine...free-download motion-DV-Studio
Populism
: Heath Row posts some of Craig's List's Craig Newmark's remarks at SXSW on my favorite topic: populism: Ask for feedback. Read all feedback and summarize. Do something in response. Repeat. That's our fundamental pattern. I report to customer service. It's the job of customer service to tell the tech guys what features people need and how to create new tools so customer service can operate better. Customer service is something that I've obsessed about.
Craig's List is an exercise in the mundane, in the everyday stuff. It's a community where people can get the word out when it comes to real-world stuff, give each other a break, and make their voice heard to be included in the Internet. In '99 when we had the dotcom frenzy, people lost sight of the fact that what you need to do is help people out with the essentials....
What have we seen over the years? People are increasingly media savvy. People can tell when someone is not speaking for real. People can tell when someone's speaking with a corporate voice vs. a human voice. You go to a Web site, there's a lot of happy, smiling people who are ecstatic you're visiting their site, and you're fairly disgusted with it. There are a lot of alternatives on the Web.
We're making things change as individuals. There's new forms of journalism going on. There's social network software. ...
Quantum physics is fun, but the only way we can change the world is by doing the mundane stuff everyday. And then doing it again. The everyday stuff we do is what really matters in the world. We need to develop a culture of trust and earn it again every day....
What have I learned about customer service? Customers are generally great at helping each other out. The first line workers know how to do things right, but it's not a hot area. They need management support. Even disgruntled customers will help you out. And you need to engage with customers, not provide some sort of "black hole."
You can actually trust people to do the right thing. If you do, they will. The number of people we have screwing around are a tiny minority.... Let the people help and manage the people and it works. It's called democracy. It's called the marketplace. It works if you let it.
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Defence
: Josh Marshall advises: The Kerry campaign went up with an ad today in response to the president's new round of negative ads. The Kerry one took aim at the president's claims about the economy.
But Kerry really needs to hit back on defense too. Now. Yes, I want to see defense and homeland security as issues in this campaign.
But when I go to Kerry's site, and look at the box on the upper-right of the page, listing big issues -- Economy & Jobs, Education, Health Care... -- defense isn't even listed.
Homeland Security is listed but going there gives you ideas about expanding Americorps and its role in Homeland Security but nothing about defense.
In other words, there's nothing about going to get the bad guys where they fester.
If I click through under foreign policy, I finally find a speech with this: At the core of this conflict is a fundamental struggle of ideas. Of democracy and tolerance against those who would use any means and attack any target to impose their narrow views.
The War on Terror is not a clash of civilizations. It is a clash of civilization against chaos; of the best hopes of humanity against dogmatic fears of progress and the future. That's the ticket.
But I want to hear the guy say he will not rest until he gets the bad guys. I want to hear the guy say he will spare nothing to defend us. As Marshall says, I want to see him talk defense. Now.
But the talk is spare and hidden.
Yesterday, Glenn Reynolds went looking for a statement from Kerry on the horror in Madrid. He finally found it. But this, too, was hidden.
Kerry is still acting as if he's up against Howard Dean, scared of his own military shadow.
He's up against George Bush and he better come out tough on terrorism -- he'd better talk and act as if we are at war, because we are -- and he better be loud and clear on it. Now. free-download motion-DV-Studio
: UPDATE: Matt Stoller says it's time to turn this into a liberal war.free-download motion-DV-Studio
: Mathew Gross sums up concurring comment -- it's a damned bandwagon! -- from Atrios and Kos. free-download motion-DV-Studio
Seeing the world through doom-colored glasses
: The Washington Post acts as if New York is collapsing into ruin before our very eyes and, thus, as if it's an act of hypocrisy or failure for Bush to come here for the convention. "New York," a recent newspaper article proclaims, "it's HOT."
Except that a closer look at this largest of U.S. cities reveals much that's not so hot. New York's unemployment rate jumped in January from 8.0 to 8.4 percent, the worst performance among the nation's top 20 cities. It has lost 230,000 jobs in the past three years. Demand for emergency food has risen 46 percent over the past three years, and 900,000 New Yorkers receive food stamps. Inflation, foreclosures, evictions and personal bankruptcies are rising sharply. Fifty percent of the city's black males no longer are employed.
President Bush will journey here this August for the Republican convention, and he is expected to celebrate the revival of the nation's financial capital since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. But at this point, that recovery is characterized more by its weakness -- and by the stark disparities between rich and poor. How's Boston doing? And D.C.? No more poverty there? Losta jobs? No racial/cultural divides? free-download motion-DV-Studio
: And while we're exuding civic pride, some damned Texan at SXSW insults Newark. free-download motion-DV-Studio
March 13, 2004
Blogbusters
: Joi is making me glad I didn't go to SXSW: No cameras... no video... fines for plugging in your laptop.... Jeesh....free-download motion-DV-Studio
The Daily Stern, PM edition
: Just saw Bill Maher's show. He interviews Sandra Tsing Loh, the NPR commentator fired for letting the F-word go out unbleeped.
Said Maher: "How dumb is this f****** country?!?" And he didn't bleep himself. He's on HBO. For now, at least, he doesn't have to bleep.
George Carlin, quoted below, droned a bit on the topic and then said: "The liberals are just as bad on ths issue as the conservates. Politically correct speech is sheer denial of free speech and their hands are not clean on this issue." Yup.
He also said that the absurdity of doing what I've been doing -- f**k -- is that you're allowed to know the idea that's being conveyed even with two letters missing; the idea has been conveyed; if the idea is what's evil then how is that better; it's absurd. Yup. free-download motion-DV-Studio
: By the way, I also saw the return of Dennis Miller this week. Boy, has he turned into an intense, nervous guy who makes me nervous just watching him. He's like the really geeky kind of person off his meds who stares right into your eyes too long and too intensely. Maher, on the other hand, is more comfortable than he ever was on HBO; he has found his groove. Miller has not.free-download motion-DV-Studio
: Here is a commercial -- quite unsafe for work or family here in America -- that is on Channel 4's site in Britain saying the f-word and others with glee. Boy, are things different there. Maybe Howard should move there. Maybe I should, too. [via AroundMyRoom]free-download motion-DV-Studio
What, what, where, when, how...
: Ross Mayfield gives us an eloquently succinct summary of the new methods of getting (and giving) news: We often pride ourselves as bloggers for how we break news, dig deep, gain sources, carry the story and highlight the details of fast moving events. However, with complex unfolding news, I find myself turning to different outlets for different reasons. We aren't the best at coverage, we just have a special blend....Press
Who: Editorial voice
What: Official sources
When: Episodic
Where: Coverage permits
Why: Profit
Blog
Who: Individual voice
What: Opinionated sources
When: Interest piques
Where: Anywhere conversations
Why: Pride
Wiki
Who: Group voice
What: Balanced synthesis
When: Evolving
Where: Common space
Why: Co-creation That's a good analysis. But he also says this: Turn to Press for the official record, Blog for social context and Wiki for the public record. I will disagree pretty strongly with that last bit.
I don't go to the press for the official record (I can go to the web for that now). I go to the press -- if they're doing their job -- for (as some students at an NYU class said to me yesterday) for succinct writing and good reporting among multiple sources.
I go to weblogs for far more than social context, far more. I go to weblogs to edit the web for me and point me to the best of the press. Weblogs are now my first stop; they are my gateway to the press.
And wikis are new to news but I look forward to seeing how they can improve the presentation of news; they have great potential.
Ross gives examples of each through the tragic lense of the Madrid story: press coverage, blogs (he linked to boingboing; I linked to Technorati), wiki (which I linked to yesterday).
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The end of ethnicity
: Joe Katzman says: Welcome to the 21st century, where the best golfer is black, the best rapper is white, and the best new reggae artist is... Jewish?!? free-download motion-DV-Studio
Buy Martha
: Was in a store and heard all the ladies behind the counter saying they wish they were at KMart, where, apparently, Martha Stewart's fans were to head today to buy up lots of Martha swag to show their support. free-download motion-DV-Studio
Assignment
: I'd be grateful if someone who speaks Arabic could compare the coverage on the English-language vs. the Arabic home pages of Al Jazeera. The English version smells not unlike CNN. I wonder whether the Arabic version is.free-download motion-DV-Studio
RSS winning over HTML
: I just noted (thanks to a lunch question from Ed Sim) that my RSS is getting more traffic than my home page.
That's a big deal. free-download motion-DV-Studio
Who are the bastards?
: Netzeitung reports that according to the Spanish secret service, 15 Islamists are behind the Madrid bombings. They say they are "99 percent certain." This from a Spanish radio report. free-download motion-DV-Studio
: And from Norway: Norwegian defence researchers have come across documents that may link Al-Qaeda to the Madrid train bombings that have claimed nearly 200 lives, Norwegian TV reported this week .
The researchers, who specialise in digging up original Al-Qaeda releases and interviews, told the NRK television channel they discovered a document on an Arabic website last year outlining Al-Qaeda strategies on how to force the US and its allies to leave Iraq, and pointing to Spain as the "weakest link".
"It wasn't until yesterday when we were going through old material to find links to Spain that we understood what we were holding in our hands," project leader Brynjar Lia told NRK.
"We mainly had the impression that the documents referred to the situation in Iraq, but on closer examination we saw that they specifically refer to Spanish domestic politics and the elections due today," he added.
According to the TV report, page 42 of the Arabic document reads: "We have to make use of the election to the maximum. The governement at the most can cope with three attacks."
The document also reportedly predicts that the other partners in the US-led coalition would follow like "pieces of domino" if Spain were to withdraw from Iraq. Don't give the bastards an inch. free-download motion-DV-Studio
: UPDATE: Three from Morocco and two from India arrested in the bombings. free-download motion-DV-Studio
: UPDATE: Spanish bloggers post on Tim Blair that a tape has been found with Al Qaeda taking credit/blame for the bombings.
: From The Observer: The Madrid bombings which killed 200 people were dramatically claimed by the Islamic militant group al Qaeda early on Sunday morning [UK time].
The Interior Minister Angel Acebes said police had recovered a videotape. 'It's a claim made by a man in Arabic with a Moroccan accent,' he said. 'He makes the declaration in the name of someone who says he is the military spokesman of al- Qaeda in Europe.'
The man on the tape says: 'We declare our responsibility for what happened in Madrid exactly two-and-a-half years after the attacks on New York and Washington. This is an answer to the crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq. If your injustices do not stop there will be more if god wills it.' free-download motion-DV-Studio
World domination
: Clay Shirky auf Deutsch. [via Dienstraum]free-download motion-DV-Studio
Left, lefter, leftest
: German unions are planning to start a new liberal party. [auf Deutsch: NetZeitung via IT&W]free-download motion-DV-Studio
What he says!
: Heiko Hebig has a great post telling terrorists to get weblogs. Just read: Obviously, you have issues. Obviously, you feel your freedom is at stake. Obviously, you are not happy with the way things are and you want to change them. And obviously, you are very, very desperate. Desperate because you feel that you are not being heard and that there is no way for you to express yourself.
Well, I got news for you, Mr. Terrorist. Every obnoxious script kiddy figured out how to use the Internet to get global attention. The idiot spammers of this world managed to turn penis enlargement pills into common household items. And you are telling me that bombs are your only choice?
Set up a damn weblog and start blogging, stupid. free-download motion-DV-Studio
Dream on
: In a case of chronic wishful thinking, The Guardian thinks that this summer's disaster flick The Day After Tomorrow -- from the creator of Independence Day and Rupert Murdoch's studio -- will unseat George Bush because it's about global warming and, of course, that is Bush's fault. Yeah, sure.
The flick's official site includes this bit of tree-hugging: At some point during the filming we looked around at all the lights, generators and trucks and we realised the very process of making this picture is contributing to the problem of global warming. Yeah, those lights do get hot.
[No, I know that's not what they mean, but you can't begrudge a guy such an easy punchline, can you?]
To which The Guardian hopefully responds: Whether this is the typical hype that surrounds a Hollywood blockbuster or the heartfelt statement of a tortured artist does not really matter. What seems certain is that the film will help to propel global warming and the environment high up the political agenda. Hmmm. If the UN and the EU and scores of nations and millions of scolding liberals couldn't propel global warming high up the political agenda, I have my doubts that an flick shown to a testosterone-rich crowd of action fans and daters will do that.
But The Guardian can dream, can't it? It sounds unlikely, but this summer might just see an alliance of commerce, populist entertainment and feel-good concern combine to weaken President George Bush and hand votes to his expected Democrat rival John Kerry.
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Hyperlocal political blogging
: Said it before, I'll say it again: Hyperlocal political blogging is where it's at (or will be). Here's a story about it in Fairfax County, VA. Says one of the local bloggers: Although her posts deal mostly with Fairfax County politics, Marshall said she received an e-mail from somebody in Arizona asking for a post on voter registration. She said she hopes "people in other parts of the country will read my blog and say, 'You know, we could do that,'" creating a nationwide network of blogs devoted to local politics.
"The Internet really is like the Guttenberg press," she said. "It is going to change human society as profoundly as the Gutenberg press but nobody knows how." [via Blog Herald] free-download motion-DV-Studio
Yet more gadget competition
: Another gadget weblog, by a New Zealander via a German version of Jason's company. [via Loic]free-download motion-DV-Studio
This is what we are fighting for
: Donald Rumseld is getting crap for having a piece of the debris from the 9/11 attack on the Pentagon in his office.
Well, I say he should keep it there. And he should give it to his successor, who should never forget whom we're fighting and what we're protecting.
And I'll go farther:
Take a piece of debris from the Towers and put it in the lobby of the FBI under a sign that says, "Remember."
Take a piece of the debris and put it in the Office of Homeland Security under a sign that says, "Never again."
Take a piece of that day and put it in the Oval Office and drill it into the wall so every President from now on will remember his or her first and most important job: protecting the people of America.
And while we're at it, why not take a piece and put it in a frame and give it to every congressman and every newspaper editor and every network news head and send one to every delegate in the U.N. with a sign that says, "This is what we are fighting for."free-download motion-DV-Studio
The Daily Stern
: GEORGE CARLIN REACTS: George Carlin, victim of seven-dirty-words crusades, reacts to the current FCC/Stern/Jackson/indecency-law hysteria: So what does the 66-year-old Carlin think of the current handwringing over what is indecent, profane, obscene, immoral, lewd or insulting?
"More of the same, more of the same. What are we, surprised?" Carlin told The Associated Press on Friday.
He blamed it on religious moralism, media commercialism and election-year politics.
"The whole problem with this idea of obscenity and indecency, and all of these things - bad language and whatever - it's all caused by one basic thing, and that is: religious superstition. ... There's an idea that the human body is somehow evil and bad and there are parts of it that are especially evil and bad, and we should be ashamed. Fear, guilt and shame are built into the attitude toward sex and the body. ... It's reflected in these prohibitions and these taboos that we have." [Thanks for the link, KMK] free-download motion-DV-Studio
: ANOTHER FINE: The FCC fined Clear Channel and Elliot in the morning for $247,500 because a fan made a feline reference in relation to porn star Ron Jeremy. free-download motion-DV-Studio
: MEET YOUR CENSOR: Michael Copps, a truly frightening FCC commissioner, wasn't satisfied with the fines against Clear Channel (that plus the Bubba fines add up to over $1 million lately). His statement: In this case, three Clear Channel stations aired graphic and explicit sexual content on nine different occasions -- including the use of sexual material in promotional rebroadcasts. Clear Channel has been the subject of repeated indecency actions at the FCC, and this show in particular has been the subject of previous complaints. Yet, notwithstanding the repeated nature of Clear Channel’s transgressions, the majority proposes a mere $27,500 fine for each incident. Such a “cost of doing business fine” is never going to stop the media’s slide to the bottom.
For repeat offenders as in this case, I believe the Commission should have designated these cases for license revocation hearings. I recognize that Clear Channel has taken some steps in recent days to address indecency on its stations. A hearing would have provided the Commission with the ability to consider what actions the stations took in response to these broadcasts and to decide on the appropriate penalty.
I am discouraged that my colleagues would not join me in taking a firm stand here against indecency on the airwaves. The time has come for the Commission to send a message that it is serious about enforcing the indecency laws of our country. That message has yet to go forth. This guy wants to decide what you and I can -- or rather can't -- hear or see. The scary thing is that he can. free-download motion-DV-Studio
PREVIOUS STERN POSTS: here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here.
(Yes, I know I should just set up a Stern category but I haven't used categories and would have to set up a template and I'm just too lazy.)free-download motion-DV-Studio
March 12, 2004
Blogging from Spain
: Tim Blair wisely got two Spanish bloggers to post their reports in English at his place. free-download motion-DV-Studio
Healthy anger
: After 9/11, I remember a nation -- and especially a city -- utterly stunned, in shock, silent except for grief and fear.
Spain is reacting differently: with anger. God bless them.
Sadly, the shock and surprise of these tragedies is gone after 9/11 and Bali and now 3/11.
Anger is the sane response. Chanting "Cowards" and "Killers," millions of protestors packed rainswept streets across Spain on Friday condemning the country's worst ever guerrilla attack which killed at least 199 people.
Spain's Crown Prince Felipe headed the main Madrid march with Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar and opposition leader Juan Luis Rodriguez Zapatero to demonstrate national unity a day after what was also Europe's bloodiest bomb attack in 15 years....
"It isn't raining, Madrid is crying!" chanted some protestors in a column of more than 2 million marchers which filled Madrid's main thoroughfare under a sea of umbrellas for more than two miles. The city came to a standstill.
Spain's El Mundo estimated that more than 11 million of Spain's 42.7 million people participated in marches across the country. I only wish I could march alongside them, our allies.
This is everybody's war. free-download motion-DV-Studio
912
: There's a meme spreading like wildfire a meme that notes that Spain's 3/11 came 911 days after America's 9/11. But Jill does her homework: Symbolism and patterns combined really get to me. I'd already noted that March 11 was exactly 2 1/2 years after September 11, but when the front page of the paper this morning said it was also exactly 911 days after 911, I almost decided to stay put in quiet Bergen (preferably with my head under my doona) for the rest of my life.
Luckily I'm a web-surfing fact-checking blogger at heart and it didn't take long before I realised that most papers aren't reporting this. Some that Google say report it no longer do by the time you follow the link. I guess they quietly deleted their errors. We had a leap year. So it was 912 days. I even double checked that with a calculator.
Insanely enough this makes me feel a lot safer. : UPDATE from the comments: Olivier counted and there are 911 days between the events; it didn't occur 911 days after 9/11.
Still sounds like the work of a sick, albeit incompetent mind. free-download motion-DV-Studio
Crapthink
: Count on Alternet to find the looney perspective on the Madrid bombings: Whether yesterday's attacks in Spain, in which 190 people were killed and nearly 1500 wounded, were carried out by the Basque separatist ETA or by al-Qaeda, they make one thing very clear: terrorism cannot be fought by military means....
It doesn't matter whether you're a dove or a hawk, left or right, concerned with the suffering of others or concerned merely with your own skin. Military means will not work. The beginning of a solution is the end of the twin occupations in the Middle East. Only after that will it be possible to take measures against terrorism that don't worsen the problem. Well now, that's a load of crapthink. So we leave the Middle East and just let terrorists train and fester and rearm and plan and recruit and launch their attacks on civilization. So we don't go after the countries fertilizing terrorists with military threat (read: Libya) and let them keep on keeping on because military effort wouldn't work. So we sit back and wait to be hit and then bury our dead. Yeah, that'll work just fine. free-download motion-DV-Studio
Encyclopaedic
: I didn't know that Wikipedia was being harnassed for news but it's a great idea: Here [via PapaScott] is the Wikipedia page on 3/11. free-download motion-DV-Studio
From Moscow
: Here's Mosnews, a new English-language site with news from Russia. [via Russpundit, of course]free-download motion-DV-Studio
Dinosaurs v. cockroaches
: We are cockroaches, we bloggers. We can survive anywhere; we scurry; we sneak up on you.
Out at the media confab I almost attended, it appears from posts on their blog (including IRC backchat about dinosaurs, captured craftily by Susan Mernit), it appears it has an air of the stomping T-rex v. the scurrying roach. Says Leonard Witt: The established journalists still are showing disdain at the bloggers. Jay Harris of USC challenged Markos Moulitsas Zúnigas of Daily Kos about his standards.
Problem is that Harris and no other academic or journalist has the power to prevent Kos from publishing whatever he wants. That’s what is nice about a democracy. You get to say what you want as long as you don’t libel or slander.
However, as Dan Gillmor pointed out in a conversation, the journalists are asking important questions. How do we develop trust on the Internet? How do we develop standards?
Unfortunately, the journalists are arrogant. We are the professionals, you are not. Therefore, what we say has worth, what you say has less worth.
It is time for journalists to get over that arrogance and see how they can work with the bloggers. Working with them does not mean controlling them because that is a losing battle. As an old friend and former colleague of mine said often, journalism is a trade, a craft -- not an art or a religion (or even a profession). It's easy to learn -- and teach -- the tricks of that trade and some of them would be helpful to bloggers who want to learn them (e.g., how to avoid libel suits, how to get a congressman to return to call, how to file Freedom of Information requests, how to write a gonzo head...). On the same count, you have to learn how to blog (which you teach yourself and your public teaches you as you find your voice); Halley is teaching some old dogs new blogging.
But you're born with integrity -- or taught it by your parents. Good God, journalists have no lock on integrity and acting that way is the worst of arrogance.
Read blogs and you find that many people do not trust the press. We need to listen to that.
Read blogs and you find that bloggers trust each other because they are more transparent and open. We need to learn from that.
Read blogs and you find that there's information and news and diverse viewpoints no news organization could gather in a dinosaur's age. We need to embrace them. free-download motion-DV-Studio
Furfy
: In The Age story to which I link below, the writer calls a red herring a "furfy." Confidential to Tim Blair: What's a furfy, mate?free-download motion-DV-Studio
Who are the bastards?
: These days, when even accidents happen we are tuned to wonder whether it was The Terrorists -- which, in this country, of course, means Islamofascist terrorists. A jet blows apart over Queens... the East Coast is thrown in to a blackout... we wonder every time whether it was them again.
In Spain, they are forced today into a sick and sad guessing game: Pick your terrorists... who are the bastards?
CNN analyzes the data so far. As we all know, it was at first assumed to be the Basque ETA; then a van was found with detonators and a tape of Koranic verses: That doesn't make a direct link of course. But we also have a claim of responsibility from a group calling itself Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigade.
This is a group that has made false claims before for other actions though, including for example, the U.S. power blackouts last summer that turned out to be caused by technical problems and not an act of terror.
What do we know is that if this was indeed ETA it would represent a dramatic shift from what we have seen from them in the past: In terms of tactics and targeting; in terms of the way it was carried out; the indiscriminate targeting of civilians with no warning and no claim of responsibility.
Terror organizations, as bizarre as this sounds, act within their own boundaries, to their own rules, and have their own justification for how they operate and who or what is an acceptable target.
Thursday's attacks broke every one of the rules that ETA has operated by in the past. So if this was ETA, the attack marks a fundamental shift, a passing of one guard to another, according to some Spanish officials. : And in The Age, Tony Parkinson warns that whether or not bin Laden is behind Madrid's 3/11, he is a model for terrorists who must be hunted down and stopped: For the Spanish, understandably, there will be anger and despair. For their fellow Europeans, it is a sickening reminder that nobody is immune. Indeed, it was British Prime Minister Tony Blair who warned only last week that "we are in mortal danger of mistaking the nature of the new world in which we live". Now, one of his more resolute allies in the war on terror, Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, leads a nation in mourning.
If any of this speculation is close to the truth, the imminent US-led "spring offensive" in the border regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan becomes all the more critical. The struggle to disrupt and destroy al-Qaeda now takes on added urgency. What sort of future beckons if bin Laden and his ilk serve as the model inspiring terror movements worldwide?
The fact that the Madrid bombings occurred despite a top-level alert points to the limits to security in open societies when fanatics are hell-bent on the mass murder of civilians. It is a challenge to which conventional law enforcement is struggling to respond.
Consider the grim ironies: in Germany, another alleged member of al-Qaeda's Hamburg cell has just walked free; in Jakarta, Abu Bakar Bashir is poised for early release; in Canberra, lawyers for David Hicks demand justice.
In Madrid, they will bury the dead. : Iraqi blogger Alaa shouts: AKE UP, PEOPLE OF EUROPE
THIS IS THE TIME TO START THE REAL GLOBAL WAR ON TERRORISM. WE ARE IN THE FRONT LINE. WAKE UP PEOPLE OF THE WORLD. : Ali, the Iraqi blogger, believes it was al Qaeda's fault: -The nature of the attacks leaves no doubt that whoever carried them wanted to cause as much as possible causalities among civilians, which seems to be a trade mark for AL QUEDA. : Sam offers the sentiments of support from many of his fellow Iraqi bloggers: Terror against innocent civilian is same anywhere and this should unite us irrespective of our ideas and religions as Muslims, Christians, Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu, Sikhism, or any one else against the terror any where from any one.
For Spanish people there are friends for you in Iraq! : Did anyone else notice yesterday that it took the BBC hours to even mention the possible al Qaeda connection? FoxNews and the AP were way ahead, from what I could see. Laziness? Agenda? They didn't want to admit that the U.S. was in Baghdad and now they don't want to admit that bin Laden is in Europe?
UPDATE: A commenter says that Reuters was the first to report the Islamic link. I'm hoping and assuming what I saw on the BBC was merely a dropped ball; just struck me as odd since they are usually quite quick on big news such as this. free-download motion-DV-Studio
: Sophia Sideshow says: If al Qaeda is behind their only export--death--I wonder about any other targets, Bulgaria is an ally in this war, and certainly not as well-protected as the US (all the more courageous they).
I'm glad that the words coming out of Spain are not, "flee!" That would be so U.N.
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The Daily Stern Extra
: RADIO SILENCE: Howard Stern is not talking today.
He started his show with a brilliantly edited montage of words from the news and from Congress yesterday about free speech and stopping it. He mixed it with music of protest and freedom.
And we heard a message he left for his producer, Gary Dell'Abate, in the middle of the night saying that he was headed into the station to make a show in which he doesn't talk.
Because, if the American Taliban has its way, soon he won't talk.
It is a strong statement, well done.free-download motion-DV-Studio
: Stern did this for the first hour and a half of his show.free-download motion-DV-Studio
: POWELL'S A CHICKEN: Stern said that for his ABC interview show, ABC contacted FCC Censor Michael Powell to invite him to be on Howard's first show. What better: Howard interviews Powell about broadcast standards.
Powell refused.
Chicken. free-download motion-DV-Studio
: MORE ALLIES: FreeStern.com has a great list of links to news and more.free-download motion-DV-Studio
: THE SEVEN DIRTY PARTS OF SPEECH: The House of Representatives tells us what is dirty: `(b) As used in this section, the term `profane', used with respect to language, includes the words `s***', `p***', `f***', `c***', `a******', and the phrases `c*** s*****', `m***** f*****', and `a** h***', compound use (including hyphenated compounds) of such words and phrases with each other or with other words or phrases, and other grammatical forms of such words and phrases (including verb, adjective, gerund, participle, and infinitive forms).'. Block that gerund! [via Lost Remote]
: Says Gene Weingarten in the Washington Post: If lawmakers feel it necessary to write obscenities in order to fight obscenity, who am I to make fun of them? Why, that would be as ridiculous as making fun of someone who tries to fight obesity by eating a rhinoceros.
In short, I am trying to be completely fair here to Doug Ose and the 29 other harrumphing, schoolmarmish co-sponsors of this bill -- which, sadly, reads like the graffiti on the stall in the men's room of the American Association of Nose-Pickers and Sexual Deviants. Otherwise known as Congress. free-download motion-DV-Studio
Jersey blogger MeetUp (I'll be there)
: NJ.com is holding a Jersey blogger MeetUp next Wednesday with the goal of spreading the gospel, the virus, the habit, whatever you call this. We want more local bloggers! Details here. Please sign-up here. See you there.free-download motion-DV-Studio
Why I like Howard Stern
:
In the maelstrom around Howard Stern and free speech -- and my daily coverage of the story here -- one thing I haven't made clear is why I like him and his show so much.free-download motion-DV-Studio
I once thought what many of you thought about Stern -- because I hadn't listened to him. I heard the same snippets and quotes and characterizations. I made the same assumptions. But then I assigned myself to review his cable show for TV Guide and I listened to his radio show.free-download motion-DV-Studio
And I liked him. I found that Stern is best taken in large doses. In the small dose of one outrageous quote or stunt, well, sure, anybody wouldn't like what they hear. But listen to him for a whole hour, then a whole show, then a whole week -- and by then he's a habit -- and you'll find that he's a very charming, likable, decent -- and funny -- man. free-download motion-DV-Studio
But more than that, he is an antedote to all the over-packaged, smiley, phony, condescending, pap of personality in American media and entertainment. The most frequently used word to describe Stern -- and the most frequently mocked -- is "honest." But it is the truest description of him. In an age of political correctness, of tiptoeing -- dishonestly -- about no end of topics, of a numbing cotton gauze covering our national rhetoric, Stern cuts through the crap and says what he thinks... and what many of us think. And that is incredibly refreshing. No, it's liberating. free-download motion-DV-Studio
Be honest: We don't all talk like Hallmark cards and ministers and HR directors all the time. When we sit down in the bar with friends, we gossip and talk about people we don't like and joke about sex. Be honest. And when we look at some news on TV, we think thoughts we wouldn't like to admit. Stern admits them.free-download motion-DV-Studio
Is he racist? No, he certainly is not. He has racists on the show -- a KKK somethingorother or just the random bozo on the phone -- and he ridicules them, allowing them to expose their utter idiocy. And idiots are funny. Admit it: When you watch game shows or reality shows you love to make fun of the idiots there and that's not necessarily anything to be proud of; making fun of idiot racists is free-download motion-DV-Studio
Stern gives us the respect to know that we, too, ridicule them; he doesn't have to protect us from them or explain to us that they're hateful fools; we're smart enough to know that. Practitioners of political correctness don't give us the respect for that judgment.free-download motion-DV-Studio
Is he mean to people who are different? No. I'd argue that he accepts them for who they are rather than just what they are far better than those of us who avert our eyes or treat them differently because they are different. Stern takes them at face value. He took a stutterer and turned him into a star who just got a big-bucks gig with Jay Leno. He reveals a garbageman to be one of the most together guys on radio. He attracts the different -- the wack pack -- because they feel comfortable with him and each other. We're all misfits in some way; Stern admits his oddities and they theirs. free-download motion-DV-Studio
When I first started listening to Stern, I did think he could be mean to his staff. But then I was let in on the joke. He pulls their chains. They pull each others' chains. The truth is that what you hear in Stern's "office" is very much like the drama and personal politics of any workplace. It's better than Dilbert. free-download motion-DV-Studio
He and his crew share their lives on the air with sometimes incredible candor. Stern lived through his marriage and divorce; his crew talks about their marriages with amazing candor. They're real.free-download motion-DV-Studio
Stern is quite self-aware. He knows he has to have a big ego to be an entertainer. He also makes fun of himself as much as anyone. free-download motion-DV-Studio
All that is about Stern's personality (at least on-air). He is also a damned talented entertainer: He's creative and funny and he is one of the best interviewers alive; he can get stars to say the things they didn't think they'd say (why do you think ABC hired him for an interview show?).free-download motion-DV-Studio
I've come to like the guy. I don't know him. I used to appear on TV or radio with some frequency as a critic and (token) Stern defender. I spoke with him once on the air about one of those appearances. He read the review I wrote in TV Guide on the air and said grateful things (involving sexual favors, as I recall). But I haven't been concentrating so much on him and the maelstrom around him because I'm a friend. free-download motion-DV-Studio
I am doing this because I am a fan. Every morning, I look forward to listening to him and his crew when I run and show and drive too damned far to work. I like to listen. If you don't, fine. Listen to something else. I won't stop you. So don't stop me. free-download motion-DV-Studio
I am also doing this because I fear for the First Amendment. In the hysteria -- and admit it's hysteria -- over Janet Jackson's iron-clad and not naked boob -- the result of a malfunction of judgment, not wardrobe -- Congress and the FCC are about to trample the rights of anyone who speaks on radio or TV or in print... or on the Internet.free-download motion-DV-Studio
Defend Stern. Defend speech. free-download motion-DV-Studio
The Daily Stern
: FREE SPEECH JUST GOT DAMNED EXPENSIVE: So the House passed its indecent "indecency" bill. Dolts. free-download motion-DV-Studio
: FROM A REASONABLE MAN: Dan Gillmor says in his newspaper column: I have some advice for Howard Stern, whose radio talk show just got dropped by a big broadcasting company. Ditch those bozos, who are too spineless for words. Go to the Internet and satellites, radio's last bastions of free speech. : ADVERTISERS LOYAL: Advertisers are sticking with Stern: Howard Stern is in hot water again, but the shock jock's advertisers are standing by their man.
Purveyors of everything from diet pills to tax advice say they will continue to buy air time on Stern's show, despite the Federal Communications Commission's crackdown on indecency and a decision by the nation's largest radio broadcaster, Clear Channel Communications Inc., to suspend the show from six of its stations.
Advertisers say they are sticking with Stern because his show attracts an important audience: young men. Bush, beware. free-download motion-DV-Studio
: POLITICAL FALLOUT: Eric Boehlert in Salon examines the political consequences of the culture war for the Republicans now that Stern is in the fight: Declaring a "radio jihad" against President Bush, syndicated morning man Howard Stern and his burgeoning crusade to drive Republicans from the White House are shaping up as a colossal media headache for the GOP, and one they never saw coming.
The pioneering shock jock, "the man who launched the raunch," as the Los Angeles Times once put it, has emerged almost overnight as the most influential Bush critic in all of American broadcasting, as he rails against the president hour after hour, day after day to a weekly audience of 8 million listeners. Never before has a Republican president come under such withering attack from a radio talk-show host with the influence and national reach Stern has....
Stern had strongly backed Bush's war on Iraq, but in the past two weeks, he has derided the president as a "Jesus freak," a "maniac" and "an arrogant bastard," while ranting against "the Christian right minority that has taken over the White House."... Boehlert also points out that Stern's audience is sizable (and I have heard bigger numbers than he uses): By way of comparison, that's more than the number of morning viewers at any given time watching Fox News, CNN and MSBNC -- combined.
"There's no question," says Harrison, "Stern is the sleeping giant of liberal radio." : FROM ALL SIDES: Conservatives have stuck up for Stern and free speech. But leftits are coming to the cause, too. Granted, that's in great measure because Stern is now bashing Bush. But if the most politically correct are defending the least politically correct, well, that tells you something. Hell, even Alternet and Ted Rall (and let me remind you I'm certainly no fan of either) are defending war-loving, death-penalty-pushing, raw-and-ribald Stern. Talk about the oddest possible bedfellows. Here's Rall. And here's Alternet on the political fallout: It seems that President Bush's "culture war" may finally succeed where Operation Iraqi Freedom did not. Namely, W and Rove's latest foray seems sure to find those long-sought-after WMDs. Weapons of Mass Destruction? No, not them. I'm talking about White Male Defectors, voters who four years ago responded favorably to Bush's no-nonsense, common man veneer, but now find themselves alienated by his increasingly expansive religious agenda and his assaults on the Bill of Rights. : PREVIOUS STERN POSTS: here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here.
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March 11, 2004
Security
: Amy Langfield spent hours in the subway with a TV crew doing a story on the blackout (and the moblog pictures she took). At the end, some cops kicked the crew out of the subway. We have permission, they said. Not anymore the cops said: Apparently this is a new rule, "because of what happened yesterday," the cop says.
"What happened yesterday," I ask.
"Madrid," the cop answers.
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Well, that'll tell 'em!
: The UN issues a "strongly worded" resolution condemning the terrorism, blaming it already on ETA. How do they know?free-download motion-DV-Studio
: A commenter below reminds us that the French were searching their train tracks only a few days ago. What did they know? free-download motion-DV-Studio
Another 11th
: I went through the World Trade Center today. It's never a routine trip, no matter how often I take it: always bringing back memories, always sobering, always sad, always angering as the PATH train bends around a corner and I look across the huge field of destruction and death down there. Today was a bad day, for I thought of the thousands of victims and their families in Spain, targets of more senseless, evil, inhuman -- every adjective is inadequate -- terrorism. I am sad for them. I am angry for them. I support them as they begin a period of grief and rage we know, too. Not much more to be said right now, but God bless you. free-download motion-DV-Studio
Bastards
: They're calling it Spain's 9/11: There was no advance warning of the attacks. At first, the Spanish authorities blamed E.T.A., the Basque group that has been seeking independence from Spain for more than three decades.
Later today, however, the Interior Ministry said the police had found a van with detonators and an Arabic-language tape of Koranic verses, according to news agencies, and that it was considering all lines of investigation.
An Arabic newspaper, Al-Quds al-Arabi, said it had received a claim of responsibility for the train bombings issued in the name of Al Qaeda.
The five-page e-mail claim, signed by the shadowy Brigade of Abu Hafs al-Masri, was received at the paper's London offices. It said the brigade's `death squad" had penetrated "one of the pillars of the crusade alliance, Spain."
"This is part of settling old accounts with Spain, the crusader, and America's ally in its war against Islam," the claim said. They want a crusade, let's give 'em a crusade.
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Blowing up media
: Mary Hodder is writing some killer posts on a group blog for a media conference/thinktanky thing happening out on the West Coast that I would have attended except that I had scheduling conflicts and also suffer from chronic conferencephobia.
In my favorite post (so far), Mary's notes describe for one of those break-up-into-workgroup sessions the concepts they're grappling with: -information networks or communities of people exchanging news, information and conversation emerge as the principal means of learning and discovery. Macro and micro Know/Trust Networks will likely eclipse traditional, informed intermediaries and gatekeepers as trusted sources of information
-all news and information will at some point be virtual, digital and mobile.
-individual's exert unprecedented power. Individual contribute to and participate in the creation of portable, immediate and continuously updated news and information. Most of that is known turf here: We the individuals exert extreme (and new) control. We demand immediacy and portability. We trust our friends here often more than we trust the people we're supposed to trust (the big, old guys).
But this was the sentence that hit me as a wonderful way to express the bigger idea, of relationships taking over as the essential glue of media:
Information networks or communities of people exchanging news, information and conversation emerge as the principal means of learning and discovery.
Right. Our fellow members of what used to be known as the audience sometimes report and m
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