BuzzMachine... by Jeff Jarvis

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....

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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.

: 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.

: 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]

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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?!?

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

: 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.

: UPDATE: Three from Morocco and two from India arrested in the bombings.

: 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.'

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World domination
: Clay Shirky auf Deutsch. [via Dienstraum]

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Left, lefter, leftest
: German unions are planning to start a new liberal party. [auf Deutsch: NetZeitung via IT&W]

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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.

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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]

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Yet more gadget competition
: Another gadget weblog, by a New Zealander via a German version of Jason's company. [via Loic]

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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."

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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]

: 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.

: 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.

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.)

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