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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?

: A commenter below reminds us that the French were searching their train tracks only a few days ago. What did they know?

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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.

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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 more often edit -- and frequently fact-check -- for us. They provide content, context, value, trust, marketing, distribution.
For years, newspapers wanted to be your friend. But in this world, your friends are your newspaper.
This is just a restating of screeds that have been issued before, and I've issued plenty of them: News is a conversation.
I look forward to reading more from out there.

: I tried to leave this as a comment on the conference blog but TypePad kept barfing it back at me. (Computers are editors, too.) If I had left it there, I would have said hi to many, many folks from my checkered past. So, hello.

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Blog mo
: Matthew Gross has gotten his personal blogging mo back, post Deanspace. He decrees today:

The First Commandment of the Blogosphere
Thou shalt not use the word snarky anymore. I mean it. You have overused it. It has grown irritating. I gave you language. Use it.
Sincerely,
God

What are the other nine?

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The Democracy Store
: Britt Blaser (noting my call for Howard Stern to get a weblog and more for his movement) proposes a clearinghouse for political-action software: The Open Republic. Good idea.

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The Defensive Index

: I was listening to NPR news last night as I drove home and heard their report on Bush' speech in Ohio. "Bush defended his..." they said. And I realized I hear that constantly. The lead wasn't "Bush proposed...." or "Bush declared...." Support him or now, I want to hear what he has to say, what he's going to do. But by putting him on the defensive, it's a negative spin, of course.

So I went to GoogleNews and did a search:
> Bush defended - 5560 stories
> Kerry defended - 2800 stories

The same ratio applies at Newsbot. Of course, as a sitting President, Bush has to "defend" a whole government; Kerry has less to "defend." But still, it's a tiresome spin.

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The crime in Spain
: Damn them. The death toll is up to 173. Terrorism is everyone's problem.

: A reader just sent me a link to the PDF of El Pais' amazing coverage.

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The daily Stern: X day in Congress

: THE INDECENT BILLS: Congress is voting on its new censorship bills multiplying fines for indecency today and Howard Stern threatened to resign when Bush signs the legislation: "If he signs this, I will effectively resign that day."

: STERN'S REQUIRED READING: Stern puts up a list of required reading on his site.
(Hey, Gary, you need a weblog. I'll help you set it up!)

: POLITICAL F-BOMB: If John Kerry slipped and dropped an F-bomb (as he has been known to in print) would he be fined $500,000?

: FINE HIM II: This just in: A broadcast general manager slipped and used one of the seven dirty words (the S one) in a Congressional hearing hosted by the guy pushing the indecency bill. So should he be fined $500,000? Should C-Span be fined $500,000? If Howard Stern gets fined, why shouldn't these guys; equal protection and all that. Where's the line? How far does this go? Just asking. [via Lost Remote]

: CONGRESSIONAL SUPPORT: Rep. Gary Ackerman (D, NY) called into the show this morning to offer his support.
He and Stern noted that it's amazing how fast these bills have rolled through Congress. How long did it take to start a Department of Homeland Security after we were attacked and thousands killed? How long did it take to get this legislation passed after Janet Jackson exposed a metal-clad breast? Some people -- namely, our legislators -- have a damned skewed view of what it means to protect the American people. By this scale, a boobs are a more urgent risk than bombs.
"Howard Stern is not a threat to our democracy," Ackerman said. "The people who are changing the rules are a threat to our democracy."

: CONGRESSIONAL SUPPORT II: The other day, Rep. José E. Serrano also called into Stern to offer support. I was out of the car but Micah Sifry heard it and reports:

Stern had him on for about 15 minutes. Serrano was trying to make a political point about how what the FCC/Bush was doing to Stern was all of a piece with its anti-democratic tendencies coming out since 9-11 (the Texas redistricting being his best example of that, but he didn't explain how the Florida recount fight fit, since it happened before 9-11). Stern was more focused on trying to understand what he needed to do next to defend himself--he asked Serrano what would be more effective--a big march on DC? working to defeat Bush? ...
I was frustrated because Serrano just seemed to be on another planet. When Stern asked him why the FCC commissioner needed $500K to fly first class or why the commissioners needed to spend so much time on junkets in Las Vegas and New Orleans, Serrano failed to even swing at those softballs (he could have said, they shouldn't be wining, dining and concubining--Bill Maher's phrase--so much with the telecom industry lobby).
Anyway, Stern finally zeroed in on asking Serrano if he could sit next to him during a hearing where he questioned Michael Powell, and he then got into a funny riff about how he would feed Serrano tough questions. Serrano hesitated forever and then finally said he would do it, muttering again about how it could hurt his career.

: A lighter morning on the air with Howard.
He said that Michael Powell is headed to Vegas, sin city, to speak soon and he asked his listeners working in the hotel to let him know whether the FCC boss watches any dirty movies in his room.

: THE FIVE-DAY DELAY: Clear Channel is shifting to a five-minute delay on its radio shows. So live radio won't be anywhere near live. By the time you hear a topic and call in to talk about it, the folks on the air will have moved onto some other topic. Now every conversation on radio will be disjointed and syncopated. Just because they're scared. [via Lost Remote]

: DR. DEREG'S INCONSISTENCIES: FCC Chairman Michael Powell gives a speech to regulators and says:

New networks deserve new thinking. We should take non-regulation of the Internet as a regulatory imperative, absent clear and compelling evidence of real harm, because limiting government intrusions – both at the federal and state level – maximizes the potential for innovation and increases opportunity for the nation as a whole.

Is he talking about speech? No, he's talking about bits.
But he should be talking about speech. That, of all things, should be unregulated -- and not just because it's a matter of the First Amendment but also because it is a matter of innovation and creativity and quality.
Where are the best programs coming from today? Not broadcast. Cable.
HBO -- whose programming started with the tittering delight of showing breasts and using various of the seven dirty words, just because they could -- grew into a free atmosphere where artists -- motivated by that freedom more than the measly money HBO pays -- create the best shows on TV. No worry about government regulation. No worry about hitting the button. No worry about holy rollers organizing advertiser boycotts. Creative freedom.
When you regulate an entire medium to make it safe for kindergarteners -- when you treat your entire audience like kindergarteners as a result -- you're going to get kindergarten material. When you allow mature creative people to create, you get creativity.

: HE STARTED IT: Yesterday, somebody questioned who start this movement to multiply fines for "indecency." Powell called for it in January.

: WHERE'S THE F'ING LINE? The Wall Street Journal has a fine story pointing to the utter absurdity of bureacrats deciding -- on our behalf and for our protection, stupid sheep that we are -- what is and isn't "indecent:"

David Solomon, chief of enforcement for the Federal Communications Commission, faced a delicate dilemma of grammar and propriety: Could the "f-word" not be indecent?
The word had been uttered during a live broadcast of the 2003 Golden Globe Awards ceremony by the rock singer known as Bono. Mr. Solomon determined that, under current federal law and court rulings, the answer would hinge on whether the word had been used in its literal meaning or as figurative slang. Put another way, was it a verb, an adjective or an adverb?
Last October, Mr. Solomon, a 49-year-old attorney known as "the law professor" at the agency, found that the remark by the lead singer for the band U2 may have been "crude and offensive," but that broadcast decency standards hadn't been violated.
In the context of Bono's full statement, made as he accepted a globe for Best Original Song for the movie "Gangs of New York," the words "This is really, really f-ing brilliant," were an "exclamative" adjective protected under principles of free speech.
Mr. Solomon's ruling raised an even-larger firestorm than Bono's original statement. The FCC received 234 complaints about Bono's on-air expletive; Mr. Solomon's ruling drew 237,215 letters to the agency. Critics screamed that the FCC was out of touch with public sentiment, and now the commission is expected to reverse the ruling.
Mr. Solomon's role as the nation's primary arbiter of broadcast propriety is placing him at the center of an escalating cultural war. Amid growing debate over violence in the movies, vulgar language on television, and Janet Jackson's wardrobe "malfunction" at the Super Bowl, Congress is holding hearings and weighing legislation that could impose fines of as much as $3 million a day on broadcasters.
In January, FCC Chairman Michael Powell called on the commission to overrule the Bono decision. Within the next week, the five-member commission is expected to rule that Bono's statement was both indecent and profane, contradicting a series of earlier rulings that obscenities uttered spontaneously over the air or in a non-titillating context aren't necessarily prohibited.
However, the ruling won't order the NBC network and affiliates that aired the show to pay fines for the incident, according to FCC officials.
The expected FCC ruling illustrates the shifting political winds on indecency.

I say this is f'ing offensive. Is that OK?

: EVEN ON NPR: Just saw the transcript from On The Media on Stern, discussing the political angle:

BOB GARFIELD: This week, the Wall Street Journal reported that the FCC is poised to slam radio shock jock Howard Stern with a hefty fine for indecency. This follows Clear Channel's dropping Stern from its lineup last week. When that happened, I observed in a commentary that Clear Channel's action was an eloquent argument against media consolidation, because what if this were not the squelching of a class clown but of a political voice. But several listeners wrote to charge that it was in fact political speech that did Stern in with Clear Channel. They said that his show had not become raunchier in recent weeks. The big change was that three days before Clear Channel dropped him, Stern came out hard against President Bush. It's an interesting question, one that we'll now pose to Eric Boehlert who frequently writes about radio, especially Clear Channel, for Salon.com...
ERIC BOLERT: I can understand where the theory comes from, because as we said, he'd been a relatively strong backer of President Bush, very pro-war a year ago. He had just come back from a week's vacation and announced he had read Al Franken's book, and announced it was a masterpiece and that he was not going to vote for Bush, so it was 5, 10, 15, 20 minutes about how awful Bush was, and this week we've heard about how Bush stole the election and the economy's in the toilet. You know, it's been pretty rampant. So he comes out against Bush, and all of a sudden three days later he's off the air. So, yeah, I, I mean I understand why people come up with that theory. When you understand Clear Channel's background, it's known as being very conservative, based in Texas, very close to Bush, Sr. and Bush 43. Very close to the White House. Gave a lot of money to Republicans. So that's where the two theories come together. But I think the overriding concern for Clear Channel was the indecency, was the congressional hearing last week. They had just fired notorious shock jock Bubba the Love Sponge last week in preparations for the hearings and then they sort of went the extra step and kicked Howard Stern off all six of the stations that were carrying it. So I think their main concern was Congress, their main concern was legislative oversight, their main concern was the FCC wanting to increase by tenfold the amount of future indecency fines, so they basically threw Howard under the bus and went up to Congress....
You, you can argue both sides of it. You know, people who think this is political speech would say well, gee, where was he dumped? He was dumped in Florida and Pennsylvania and Kentucky, you know, those are swing states for the election. And the flip side would say, as you did, you know, six markets, you know, it's not like he's not on the air....I think Clear Channel does like Republicans. I think they like ratings and revenues more, and I think they fear the FCC more than they, they fear Howard Stern. But again, he had just really come out very strong against Bush and then, you know, poof -he sort of disappears. So, you know, I understand where the theory comes from.

: SAVE STERN BLOG: A new pro-Stern site. (I'm ahead on reporting the news but I'm glad to see an ally!).
See also StopFCC.com.

: FIGHTING OVER HOWARD: A source in Viacom/Infinity says they'll defend Stern and stick by him and says he can't go to satellite because he has two years left on his contract. Maybe... Unless he's fined and pulled or he says he can't do his show and has an out in his contract. [via IWantMedia]

: PREVIOUS STERN POSTS: here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here.

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