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BuzzMachine
by Jeff Jarvis
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April 30, 2004
The Kerry plan
: I've been begging for a Kerry plan for Iraq. Today, he presents it. This anniversary is not a time to shout. It is not a time for blame. It is a time for a new direction in Iraq and for America to work together so that once again this nation leads in a way that brings the world to us and with us in our efforts....
This moment in Iraq is a moment of truth. Not just for this administration, the country, the Iraqi people, but for the world. This may be our last chance to get this right. We need to put pride aside to build a stable Iraq.... The campaign press release summarizes his three-point plan: First, Kerry said that NATO is now a global security organization and creating a stable and secure environment in Iraq must be one of its global missions.
“The US will lead, but we must also listen,” Kerry said. “We must share responsibility and we must share authority. When NATO members have been treated with respect, they have always – always – answered the call of duty. Every member of NATO has a huge stake in whether Iraq survives its trial by fire or is consumed by fire and becomes a breeding ground for terror, intolerance and fear.”
Second, Kerry said an international High Commissioner should be authorized by the UN Security Council to organize the political transition to Iraqi sovereignty and the reconstruction of Iraq in conjunction with the new Iraqi government. Kerry said the Commissioner should be an individual who is highly regarded by the international community and who has the credibility and capacity to talk to all the Iraqi people.
Third, Kerry called for a massive training effort to build an Iraqi security force that can actually provide security for the Iraqi people. He said training must be done in the field, on the job as well as in the classroom. Well, the good news is that he is not treating the U.N. as a cure-all. NATO is, on the one hand, somewhat saner and more under our influence. But NATO is also, of course, under the influence of Old Europe. So whether Kerry could convince NATO to take an active role -- just as the Spanish flee -- is anybody's guess.
It's a good start -- still sketchy but a start. It is time for Kerry to grab this bull by the horns and make the issue his. Can he?
Airport security
: You wanna see airport security? Try flying out of Baghdad International. Here's Abu Hadi's report.
Doth protest
Simon Dumenco, erudite media critic, comes off a bit uppity in Patrick Phillips' interview with him on the relaunch of Benneton's Colors mag.
Dumenco bristles at the mention of Colors being the product of custom publishing. Rex Hammock, custom publishing magnate, takes him to task for that.
Dumenco also belittles most blogs -- "With a very few exceptions, blogs are generally overrated" -- though he adds that they "do make a difference."
He belittles even the Internet: "With the arguable exception of certain porn stars -- and Paris Hilton -- the Web has created very little original media value with long-term traction."
Well, the magazine better be damned good, eh?
The Daily Stern
: COVER BOY: My cover story at The Nation about the FCC, the First Amendment, and Howard Stern is online. The conclusion: Stern shies away from no sacred cow. He is a positive force in American media. Just as weblogs tweak big media to keep them honest, Stern pushes the line to keep politicians and celebrities and his audience honest. So I like to listen to him. If you don't, fine. Listen to something else. I won't stop you. Just don't stop me.
And there's the real question: If the government is going to regulate speech, where's the line and who's going to draw it? Is it at the least-common-denominator that makes all media safe for 5-year-olds? Is it at the church door that makes all media safe for church ladies? Is it at my car door so I can still listen to Stern? Is the line going to be drawn just on broadcast or will it extend to cable and satellite--and the Internet? Will the censored be just shock jocks--or newsmakers or bloggers?
I couldn't say it better than Michael Powell--the old, freedom-loving Michael Powell--did in 1999 when he accepted the Freedom of Speech Award (which one assumes is now hanging in his bathroom): "I have gained a deep and profound respect for the wisdom of having an unwavering principle that stands at the summit of the Constitution, and holds: 'Government shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech.'... Benevolent or not, we did not sign away to a Philosopher-King the responsibility to determine for us, like a caring parent, what messages we should and should not hear."
So to the barricades, edgy elite! This is not just about Howard Stern. It's not just about Bono or The Breast. It's about our First Amendment. It's about our freedom of speech. It's about us. (Unfortunately, the online version doesn't include links -- including a link to this blog.)
: THE STERN BLOG: On the air this morning, Howard said he blogs under a secret identity (he used to chat in hiding, too).
Choire Sicha at Gawker begs for any clues to find Howard's blog.
Allah thinks it's me. Well, we're both about 50, over 6'4", formerly geeky, and hate the FCC.
: MORE STERN BLOGGING: Choire also sends me a note from a woman who says she was a Stern intern and reports: While working as an intern for the Stern show last summer, Howard had one of the other interns call from the green room, pretending to be a listener wanting to know what blogging was. Howard answered the question, and then moved on...it was quite bizarre. As I remember, that's when Howard said he read Gawker. It's just a closed loop, our little world.
: TOO DAMNED MUCH DECENCY: Greg Beato says that the cure to indecency is far worse than the disease: At some point you have to ask: How much decency is too much? A small dose of Tesh is like aural Prozac. His soothing baritone refreshes; his sunny optimism uplifts; his easygoing rectitude inspires. But the John Tesh Radio Show goes on for a full five hours!...
What’s the average citizen to make of all this? Prepare yourself for lots and lots of Tesh (unless he starts talking about amputating his penis again). And drop to your knees and pray that cable TV, satellite TV and radio, and the Internet remain free from FCC regulation. Because really, how much enforced propriety can one freedom-loving nation stand? Already, there’s a surfeit of decency. While Pax-TV is available in ninety-five million households, it has attracted more than three million actual viewers on only two occasions during its six-year history. To make ends meet, it airs infomercials for hours each day.
Meanwhile, by embracing nudity, sex, profanity, and violence—which is to say, everything the FCC aspires to eliminate—HBO has netted an estimated twenty-seven million paying subscribers. And that’s the beauty of our current media age: There’s decency for the pious, trash for coarser sorts, and plenty of squeaky-clean fare for the kids. Blessed with such abundance, we all should be celebrating. Instead, the FCC and its allies broadcast a clear, condescending, and cynical message: if allowed to make your own choices, they believe, you will invariably choose sleaze over rectitude, fart jokes over sermons, Stern over Tesh. And only by fining indecency out of existence can decency triumph. [Thanks to Reason's Nick Gillespie for the link]
: PENNIES FROM HELL: The DJs fined for pulling a phone prank on Fidel Castro will pay the FCC with a mountain of pennies raised from listeners.
: 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, 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.
April 29, 2004
Koppel, the sequel
: Below, I came out of an internal debate deciding I didn't like Ted Koppel turning the names and images of U.S. soldiers in Iraq into a gimmick. Sinclair TV agrees; they're preempting the show. ``Despite the denials by a spokeswoman for the show, the action appears to be motivated by a political agenda designed to undermine the efforts of the United States in Iraq,'' the company said in a faxed statement. Sinclair, which owns 62 U.S. television stations, said ABC is disguising political statements as news content. Though I agree with Sinclair's view of the stunt, I don't agree with Sinclair's action. Better to let Koppel do what he wants to do but also to insert the company's statement before and after the show -- and let the audience decide.
Decentralize
: Google is getting flack, and well it should, for killing ads from a T-shirt company that actually tries to say something on its shirts. Its policy forbids "advertisements for language and site content that advocates against an individual, group, or organization." In short: Saying something.
How much better it would be if Google would allow any ad but allow any site to refuse any ad. Put the power in the hands of the players and stand back. Decentralize. That's the moral of the age. Decentralize.
Blog event
: If you're around New York on Monday, make sure you come to the oh-so-hip Apple store for an entertainment event. I'll be playing referee between Denton and Calacanis. That's just one of the three rings in this circus. Details here.
American Idolette
: Wonkette, Ana Marie Cox, is on TV... sort of. She's interviewed for a Washington Post online video thing. Imagine what some production value would bring. She'll be rich and able to provide a decent home for her dog.
Whereabouts
: I'm back home. Was on vacation in Williamsburg all week. Blogging soon enough.
Daily Stern update from the road: A caller said he got a letter from the FCC saying they will not fine Oprah for doing just what Stern did to get fined. Smoking gun of the hypocritical vendetta against him.
: UPDATE: A commenter (rudely) points out that this came from a wack-packer. I had just tuned in and didn't know who it came from.
: UPDATE II: I was going to call the FCC to check on this when I got home. Ernie Miller beat me to it. He says the FCC does not know of such a letter. Howard, it appears, gets a phony phone call from his own phony phone caller.
And I was taken in, too.
On the road again
: Out and about today. Posting resumes later.
About About
: Peter Caputa has some interesting ideas for About.com, suggesting that it become a repository of syndicated blog content, sending revenue to bloggers in return.
I do think there is room -- and a need -- for such a service but I doubt that About.com is the service to do it.
A few months ago, I had lunch with Tom Rogers, the former head of Primedia who bought About.com, and said in the middle of my usual blog evangelism that if About.com started today, it would be decentralized, not centralized. He agreed. Rogers understood the power of niche content and targeting online. When Scott Kurnit started About and Rogers bought it, the decentralized blog world had not yet exploded. But now it has. Yet About remains a centralized content service, not even a portal to decentralized content.
Do we need such a portal to decentralized blog content? That depends on whether you think people will ever specifically wonder what "blogs" have verus what online "content" has. I don't think blogs should segregate themselves from the rest of the content world.
But I do think there is opportunity for sophisticated and decentralized ad and content networks and Caputa's thoughts about grafting such opportunities onto About is an interesting way to frame the discussion. [via PaidContent]
The DaIly Stern
: NEXT, CHICKEN BREASTS WILL BE BANNED: The entertainment reaction to the FCC's new puritanism just keeps getting more absurd. The Wall St. Journal on Fear Factor: Now producers are on a much shorter leash. Heightened sensitivity to the decency debate means contestants won't be asked to eat the private parts of water buffalo, as in season three. While not banned outright by the network, that sort of thing isn't encouraged, Mr. Kunitz says. Nixed altogether: anything involving animal blood (in one early episode contestants had to bob for rings in a 50-gallon vat of it) and stunts performed in the nude.
April 28, 2004
The names
: I've had to let sink in Ted Koppel's plan to read the names of all the American soldiers killed in action in Iraq to decide what I think about it.
I take Koppel at his word that this is a tribute to the soldiers and their sacrifice.
I take him at his word that he is not trying to be political: "My first reaction was I didn't want it to be seen in any fashion as a political gesture," Koppel said. "We had to be careful that it could not be seen as political on our part.
"I think it can be seen just as powerfully by people who are totally supportive of the war, as those who aren't," he added. But it is political. It is too reminiscent of Vietnam and of Life Magazine's statement against that war.
This has become, since that then-groundbreaking print documentary, a journalistic cliche. How many times have we seen such roll calls of death called out: war deaths; drug deaths; AIDS deaths; 9/11 deaths. It has been used so often that to pull it out now is a very conscious effort, a journalistic conceit with a clear purpose and a history that cannot be ignored. It means: Let's hit the people over the head with what we think they're ignoring; let's add it up for them; let's rub their noses in the enormity of it; let's remind them of a story nearly ignored.
But the Iraq war is hardly ignored. We don't need Koppel to bring our attention to the danger and death there.
Had this been positioned as a tribute to the dead and their sacrifice for freedom -- if it had come on, say, Memorial Day -- then I might not have such an uneasy feeling about it. But it doesn't.
So it seems to me that the names and faces of the dead are being used -- exploited -- to make a point.
Like a virus
: Muslim violence spreads to Thailand.
The R card
: Elton John says American Idol is racist. Nevermind that one winner was black. Nevermind that the first people voted off this year were white. A talented black singer was voted off while an untalented white singer with red hair stays on and Elton John throws out the glib charge of racism.
Mass destruction
: The Guardian reports that two Danish reporters face jail "after they were formally charged with publishing classified government reports that questioned the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq."
Something me
: Cameron Marlow finds a zeitgeist moment: While walking home from work the other day I passed a group of guys emerging from a pizza joint. After a few handshakes and goodbyes they parted ways and made arrangements for their next meeting. And then one of them yelled across the street, "something me on Thursday." His friend looked a little confused, but I knew exactly what he was talking about. He added, "IM, call, email... I don't care."
Young at mind
: The founder of amNewYork, one of the many free minipapers spreading across the country, tells Time: "What these kids like is fast, blather free and unbiased," he says. "Something to give them a good, comprehensive scan of the country in 20 minutes." Well, I'd say that's true not only of "these kids" but of everyone: Who wants to waste time reading the news just because writers and editors like to blather? That's why Metro and similar papers have succeeded around the world. That's why the Web has succeeded as a news medium! Just because it's short, that doesn't mean it's young (or dumb); short is efficient.
The Daily Stern
: COVER STORY: The magazine article I wrote the FCC, the First Amendment, and Howard Stern will be the cover story in the next issue of The Nation. This was the story I pulled from another magazine after a bad edit. Micah Sifry sent it to The Nation's Katrina vanden Heuvel and now it's on the cover. They tell me the story will be up online this week; I'll link to it as soon as it is.
: THE PEOPLE SPEAK: The exodus of listeners from Clear Channel stations that dropped Howard Stern is breathtaking: When they dropped his show from six stations at the end of February, Clear Channel expected a morning ratings exodus to follow. In San Diego, they got it. With Stern, KIOZ was No. 1 12+ in February with an 8.9. Without him, the station's morning drive ratings crashed to a 27th place 0.7 in March. The in-demo decline was even more spectacular: 12.7 to 0.7 in Men 18+, 20.6 to 0.8 in 18-34, and 10.1 to 1.0 in 25-54. To translate: The ratings for the station plummeted from 8.9 to 0.7; the ratings for men 18+ imploded from 20.6 to 0.8.
The people have spoken, again.
The FCC is protecting no one.
: THIS SUCKS: NPR attorneys are telling Fresh Air that they can't say "suck."
: FIGHT BACK: Viacom has filed a formal objection to the first of the recent FCC fines against Stern.
: STERN POWER: The LA Times discovers the political power of Stern: The long-sought liberal talk radio hero isn't Air America's Al Franken, but that walking, talking wedge issue, Howard Stern.....
Like his audience, Stern has always been broadly misunderstood. Calling Stern a "shock jock" does him an injustice, lumping him in with his lesser imitators and with the gross-out inanities of reality TV. In fact, Stern is a provocateur and comic talent in the tradition of Lenny Bruce. Whether his subject is sex, scatology, show business or his own failures and insecurities, he has brought unprecedented frankness to the airwaves. The real "shock" — and appeal — of Stern's show is how, with wit and brutal honesty, it punctures the phoniness of so much media chatter...
If Kerry wins a close election in November, he may well owe a debt to the man who calls himself King of All Media. And political analysts may find themselves enshrining another crucial voting bloc, alongside soccer moms and NASCAR dads: Howard Stern fans.
From Iraq
: Iraqi blogger Mohammad doesn't want no stinkin' UN running his country: When I heard about the decision of the coalition to get UN involved the in the process of authority handover, I grew really restless, and what made me more worried is that ‘all parts’ seem to agree on this; the coalition, the UN the GC and the whole world. Now wait a minute! Is that the same useless, half corrupted organization that supported Saddam, and still support his likes in the name of preserving the international wall? Is that the same organization that left Iraq and the Iraqi people after the 1st terrorist attack? I hope they are speaking of something other than that. Some people would say that this is what the Iraqi people want, but this (if it’s ever true) is not the question....
[T]here’s no possible way, with all this violence going, that the Iraqis can voice their real demands, or that significantly valid polls can be performed....
It’s my right and my duty as an Iraqi citizen and a human being to speak out and say that what Iraq needs is a firm alliance with the USA and the rest of the coalition, because these are the governments that have real interest in establishing a true democracy in Iraq and these are the people that I trust most. As for the UN, it can play a role in organizing humanitarian aids and can also play a minor role in the political future of Iraq. : And his brother Ali lists the ideal qualifications for the interim head of state of Iraq: 1-He should not be a cleric.
2-He should be at least 84 years old with life expectancy of no more than 90 for his family.
3-Should have no criminal record.
4-He should have at least 2 chronic illnesses (organic) with no possible cure.
5-He should have NO sons.
6-He should not be able to make a speech longer than 15 minutes....
10-He should have no interest in nerve gas, mustard gas, abdominal gas…etc.
11-He should have no experience whatever with guns.
12-He should NOT be a war hero.
13-He should not have a history in using words like conspiracy, historical, mother of all …., the day of days…..etc....
16-The applicant should show documents that prove that he’s hated by the majority of Palestinians, Saudis, Egyptians and ARABS in general.... : River is nya-nyaing about Chalabi being on the outs (after reports that he won't be picked for the next government): I've been reading articles about Chalabi being (very hopefully) on his way out. I can't believe it took this long for Washington to come to the conclusion that he is completely useless. : Ays is ready to celebrate Saddam's birthday on Wednesday: Hahaha.. Tomorrow is Saddam’s blessed birthday April 28 !!!!!!!! but he’s not here, so come on Iraqis, don’t be rude, let’s get there at his new house and throw a piece of cake in his jail !!
Thank God, we don’t have to pretend anymore, we are not afraid, tomorrow is an ordinary day, we have many channels to watch, we won’t be watching at Saddam’s channel anymore, we are not afraid from that decree that Saddam used to state on his birthday after he finishes many bottles of Whisky : ‘Let all the prisoners get out, this is a noble deed from the president, but don’t steal and kill.. OK.. ? come on ..feel free to roam in your country’ ! That’s why the criminals love him.!
Thank God, Saddam has gone forever, I hope someday we Iraqis, Americans, British and all the brave people who liberated us make parties and celebrate, cooperate and live in peace and build a prosperous world for our children and for us... : Faiza at Family in Baghdad asks why us? Did someone plan to make Iraq the battlefield for the war between terrorists
and their enemies??
Were ignoring borders' security and the state of lawlessness a planned thing
to draw America's enemies into Iraq where they can be fought?
When did the battlefield became Iraq instead of the US?
Iraq instead of Afghanistan?
what did We- innocent civilians- do?
Who cares about us?
Who defends us? She also complains about the USA Today reporter who did a story on Iraqi blogs: USA Today reporter visited us few days ago.
We talked about this site, when we started to blog and why.
Then I called the women and chidren from Falloja who were staying with their
relatives next door so he would interview them.
The fighting at Falloja was very intense at that time.
Then the article was published... It was tasteless and meaningless and he didn't write a word about the Falloja residents he met.
April 27, 2004
Blogging the world
: Loic Le Meur and Samantha Tonkin are in Warsaw blogging the European Economic Summit of the World Economic Forum (aka Davos).
Air American laundry
: A shakeup at Air America: CEO and head of operations out.
Reinventing media
: At Unmediated, Yatta has a wonderful post re-imagining TV in the age of blogs. Every medium could stand to re-imagine itself in the age of citizens' media. 1. Start publishing your program schedule as an openly subscribable RSS feed based on the XMLTV format. It will allow folks to publish feedrolls of their favorite TV shows on their blogs. If people like your programming, they'll spread the word for you. You gain instant karma.
2. Fund Andrew Grumet's (and other folks') work to marry BitTorrent, RSS, and TiVos. Make sure it all works with your newly minted RSS feed.
3. Pay someone else to graft the TiVo interface onto a BitTorrent client....
4. Change your advertising model. People don't like 30-second ads. Move all advertising to product placement...
5. Make it easy for folks to download your programming via BitTorrent. Don't worry: you've embedded your advertising in your programming, remember?...
6. Encourage bloggers to create feedrolls of their favorite TV programs, irregardless of the TV network....
7. Create an Amazon Associates-style revenue sharing program for bloggers who's readers click through to download an entire episode. Extra commission for those who click on interactive ad links.... How would you re-imagine radio... books... newspapers... TV news...?
The Daily Stern
: FCC GETS RATINGS: Ever since the FCC started fining Howard Stern in an attempt to make him the American moral pariah, what do you think has happened to the ratings? Do you think the people took the FCC's fines as a warning to stay away from filth? Do you think the people agreed with the FCC and decided to shun Stern?
Of course not. The ratings have soared: Federal regulators may have painted a big bull's eye on Howard Stern's back, but the recent government crackdown on indecency over the airwaves has proven a boon to the shock jock's ratings.
The ribald radio host scored major gains in listenership during the winter quarter ended March 31 in the three biggest U.S. markets -- New York, Los Angeles and Chicago -- according to figures made public on Monday by the Arbitron radio ratings service.
In Stern's home market of New York, where his show is broadcast on WXRK-FM, he topped all morning drive-time competition with a 7.2 share in total audience, up 22 percent from the fall quarter and 18 percent from last winter, Arbitron said.
Selling virtue
: Rick Locke, a commenter in this blog, sent me email the other day with an intriguing suggestion: How about if bloggers band together to buy an ad on Al Jazeera? (Consider it MoveOn in reverse.)
He wants to debunk this Huntington quote that leads off Salam Pax's site: "The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact, non-Westerners never do." Says Locke: Our army doesn't make us rich; Machiavelli was obsolute in 1865. Our wealth gives us a strong army, and our wealth comes from our civil and social arrangements. If Arabs want to be strong and proud, we'll be glad to show them how.
What would you say if you advertised out side to the Al Jazeera audience?
HypePad
: TypePad has a puzzling new logo. What the hell is it supposed to be? What does it look like to you? A drooling PacMan is all I can see. [via Tom Coates]
Saudi.com
: The only Saudi blogger I know of, the Religious Policeman, begins to lift the veil on himself in an FAQ: 1. Who are you?
I am a Saudi, living in Riyadh. I am married (to my one and only ever wife), have a family, a Filipino maid, and a driver (her husband). Beyond that, I am not prepared to disclose....
4. Why are you publishing a Blog?
I'm a great believer in the Internet, and in the power of information to cast a light into the darker corners of our world. I'm addressing an English-speaking audience, in the hope that they will recognize that on the whole we are good folk, just like anyone else, but caught between an ultra-conservative Royal dictatorship on one side, and terrorists on the other. I am that this will inform their opinions of us. I would also like to encourage my fellow-countrymen to become fellow-bloggers as well.
5. Is it dangerous to do this?
The ruling elite would not look kindly upon my efforts. If found out, I would certainly lose my job, as already happens to those who publish critical letters in the press. I might also become a guest of Prince Nayif, until I "got my mind right". However I'm not a super-hero; if I suspect that a net is closing, then I will cease blogging....
April 26, 2004
Pop go the weasels
: Ed Sim pops the Lindows IPO bubble, pointing out that too much of the money goes straight into the pockets of the founder. Ed wonders whether this IPO will show that individual investors have learned their lesson.
There is no public; there are only publics
-or-
You don't represent me; I hired you
: Jay Rosen hit a nerve -- again -- with his post about George Bush's view that the press does not represent the public. Much talk ensued about who represents whom and how good they are at it; Glenn Reynolds links to and discusses much of it.
What occurs to me is that no one respresents The Public -- first because there is not one public and second because that is not the essential relationship we have with the people claiming to represent us. Those are the assumptions that need to be questioned -- and our world of citizens' media begins to question them.
I am not a member of a single, monolithic American public. You and I are members of many publics. OK, that's fairly obvious; we, the people, are sliced and diced by demographic and psychographic and opinion and geography.
Yet there are many who claim to represent us, The Public. Winning presidents and political parties do. The press does. But they don't. Bush didn't win the majority of votes; he doesn't represent us. The same could be said of every President, since so many of us don't vote. Nobody elected the press; they elected themselves. And they certainly don't represent everyone since there are so many who don't pay attention to them.
So the first fallacy is that there is one public. The second is that anyone represents us. But the third -- the one the matters -- is that the relationship is representative at all. That's the misnomer.
The relationship, instead, is one of service. We don't elect politicians to represent us. We elect them to serve us. We shouldn't call our system "representative democracy" but, instead, mercenary democracy: We hire people to run the government. Sometimes, they'll represent our views; sometimes, they won't. But if they don't do their jobs well, we fire them. And if the press doesn't serve us well, we get our information elsewhere. All they have is our trust and if they lose that, they lose any claim on either representing or serving us.
What does citizens' media have to do with all this? It reminds us that we are not one public but, instead, countless individuals and interests. And when a politician does not represent us well, we each have the power to say so. When the press does not inform us well, we each now have the press and power to compete.
That's why I suggested that the White House should invite bloggers to its Pres conferences -- because it would demonstrate that no one represents us. That's why I so strenuously object to the FCC playing national nanny -- because no one should presume to know what my standards are and how to protect them.
For anyone say they "represent" us is dangerous conceit; it is their effort to take over our soveriegnty and act on our behalf. For them to, instead, say they "serve" us is to restore the proper relationship.
The Daily Stern
: THE NANNY MACHINE: Lost Remote reports that one of the hot items at the National Association of Broadcasters' confab was the Bleepinator, which uses voice-recognition to bleep offensive words.
April 25, 2004
Whereabouts
: Posting likely to be on-and-off. Could be on. Could be off.
For the record
: NY Times Public Editor Dan Okrent celebrates that the New York Times is no longer the paper of record. Right. Google is.
Where to get first-hand news
: Reporters in Iraq can't give us first-hand news... but bloggers can.
The head of CNN laments that the violence in Iraq means that reporters are not getting out to find out what is going on firsthand and that means we're not getting good reporting from Iraq: I think news consumers are being shortchanged to a degree, not just on television but in print, because journalists are not able to do their jobs effectively, and certainly the depth and breadth of reporting that you saw even a month ago was far more vast than what news consumers get today. This makes Cori Dauber sputter: We're being shortchanged to a degree? Well I suppose that we are. And I applaud him for making that clear and explaining the limitations on reporting clearly and explicitly so that we can evaluate what we're getting from Iraq knowing that. All the more reason for us -- and for news organizations! -- to watch what the Iraqi bloggers are saying and to hope that more start publishing. It's not their job to cover all the news. But they give us the news they know from their perspectives. On many days, Zeyad's blogroll has news from the front.
See, for example, this report from Alaa.
: River also criticizes media coverage -- Western media coverage -- of Iraq.
Hyper about hyperlocal
: Go to GoSkokie.com: "news for the people by the people." It's the fruit of the hyperlocal project at Northwestern. Very exciting to see something grow from concept to reality so quickly.
Kerry's quagmire: Nothing for something
: G. Pascal Zachary says in the SF Chron that Iraq could be Kerry's quagmire instead of Bush's: The conventional wisdom would have you think Iraq is turning into George Bush's quagmire, his Vietnam.
Well, as the war gets worse, Bush's popularity remains steady and even nudges up a bit, and at least his bedrock supporters seem prepared to stick with him no matter what happens in Iraq....
The perils for Kerry were revealed last week when Ralph Nader, who may have cost Al Gore the 2000 presidential election, described Kerry as "stuck in the Iraq quagmire the way Bush is." ...
Nader now has a rationale for his campaign. While the antiwar wing is small, it is large enough, if it goes for Nader, to tip the vote Bush's way in a few swing states. ...
To avoid this, Kerry needs to quickly assemble a thoughtful, practical and compelling plan that reframes the debate over Iraq's future. I keep quoting Micah Sifry on this: You can't beat something with nothing.
The Saudi civil war
: The Saudi blogger, Religious Policeman, says, the Saudi civil war has begun: The first was when King AbdulAziz, back in the last century, unified Saudi Arabia (or stole it from the Hashemites, depending on your point of view. However the victors write the history).
The second is starting now. Am I being over-dramatic? Some may think so. However I do not believe that I am.
Saudi Arabia has always nurtured religious extremists thru its Wahabbi state religion, its educational system, and its introverted attitude to the outside world. The advent of oil provided the finance for these extremists to practice what they preached.
At first they operated abroad, in Afghanistan, in Chechnya, in the Yemen. And we Saudis regarded them as brave adventurers, the late 20th century equivalent of volunteers in the Spanish Civil War.
Then came 9/11. It had become more serious. But Westerners were the target. And, at all levels, we never really condemned it. Indeed, many cheered....
Now, all of a sudden, they are attacking Saudis. OK, Saudis from the ruling tribes, part of the security forces. But we all look the same. And suddenly we are the targets. The terrorists are not going to leave us alone, because we're not part of the government apparatus. And now we are faced with the sudden realization that we should have done something about this a long time ago.
In the cause of freedom
: A blogger named Kerry Dupont has done something wonderful in the cause of freedom: She just sent laptops, scanners, cameras and more equipment of citizens' media to Iraqi bloggers, including Zeyad and Omar and Ays.
Kerry attempted to get computers donated but when the company found out that there wasn't a tax-deductible charity involved, they backed out. She went ahead and got the equipment and paid a whopping, and I do mean whopping, shipping bill and went through a great deal of work to pull this off.
And she has only just begun. Kerry is setting up a charity so she can do more of this. She looked at the Iraqi bloggers and all they were doing and at the soldiers (including family members) and all they were doing and she asked what many of us are asking: What had I done? Yes, I was using my voice, but could I do more? So I started working on this idea. From this idea a larger one flowed. Free media. For Iraq first. For Iran, for China, for Cuba and North Korea. But I would start in Iraq, because of the voices of who I had come to regard as my Iraqi friends. Zeyad was having a difficult day one day and I told him what I truly felt, I said, Zeyad, my eyes are on yours, and they are full of tears, but I will not turn away. I was committed to doing something, however small, to help spread the voices of the Iraqis.
We started corresponding, and that is when I truly found what a gift the internet is. Zeyad and I exchanged e mails about my son's gerbils, and his ducks, about food, family, and life. Omar and his brothers, Ali, and Mohammed, I also became fast friends with. I am still overwhelmed by their desire and love of freedom that has come so strong in a land of uncertainty. That's what it's all about, isn't it? People linking to each other, talking, understanding, helping, sharing. People changing their worlds, our world.
Your contribution can be tiny. It can be huge. But every one of you can help change the world now.
: Kerry suggests making contributions at Ays' and Omar's sites to help pay for the shipping.
: In her shipment, I sent along a package to Zeyad with copies of the Weekly Standard in which his photos and report appeared. He said his parents would be proud.
: Also forgot to point you all to a USA Today story on the Iraqi bloggers.
: And for me, this whole saga of Zeyad and the Iraqi bloggers links to the story of Hoder and the Iranian bloggers. Hoder just noted the year anniversary of the arrest of Iranian blogger Sina Motallebi (who was later released from prison and allowed to leave Iran under strong pressure from bloggers and thus media). This was the moment and story that brought me into the world of Iranian blogs, seeing that as a model for what could and should happen in Iraqi with weblogs, which led to Zeyad starting his blog, which led to more bloggers coming online, which led to Kerry being inspired to help them spread their word. It's a small world, this blogosphere. A wonderfully small world.
We have seen the future and it is us
: Leonard Witt finds the essence of a good report from IBM on the future of media. An increasing segment of consumers will be able to compile, program, edit, create and share content; as a result, they will gain more control and become more immersed in media experiences.
The future will see more open, reciprocal relationships and more ways to interact and customize at every point of the media value loop – among brands, creators, suppliers, distributors, delivery systems, customers and “experiencers” of media content.
Consumers will be able to compile, edit, produce, create and broadcast complex content and manipulate huge files from the comfort of their homes and personal budgets. The battle for human attention will remain pitched: innovations will continue to cascade rapidly to market. The glut of choices, channels, brands, traditional media and archival content must now compete with customers’ and consumers’ new enthusiasms for interactive media, on demand scheduling and publishing, and steadily increasing thirst for the rich, interactive experiences digital technologies make possible.
The horizontal axis shows trends in the experience of media consumption, moving from the traditional media-directed system to the open, immersive environment of the future. Media companies must interact with the “hot” new combinations of technology, devices and behaviors that will be unpredictably driven by open markets and a determined sense of user entitlement.
April 24, 2004
The Daily Stern
: FCC SIDES WITH CASTRO: Among all the absurd, meddling, and stupid rulings from the FCC lately, this one really takes the Twinkie: The FCC fined a station for making a phony phone call to the real Fidel Castro -- and getting him on the line -- but not following commission rules about getting permission to put the person on the air: ...the Cuban officials were not provided with notice that their conversations were to be broadcast prior to recording; and that Mr. Castro was only provided with notice of the station’s intent to record and broadcast the conversation after the conversation had commenced....
The rule reflects the Commission’s longstanding belief that prior notification is essential to protect individuals’ legitimate expectation of privacy, as well as to preserve their dignity by avoidance of nonconsensual broadcasts of their conversations....
...we find nothing in the rule that excuses the prohibited conduct on the basis of the recipients’ residence or their political status. The rule is designed to promote disclosure by licensees before a conversation is recorded and/or broadcast and to curb behavior that would result in a recipient of a call being embarrassed or surprised by a licensee. Yeah, we wouldn't want to embarrass or surprise a frigging murderous dictator.
Somebody stop these effing fools! [Discovered by George Mannes via Choire Sicha]
: INDECENT BUSINESS: The Wall Street Journal online puts together quite the graphic package on the FCC and indecency, including a chart showing the rocket-rise of fines lately and the naughty bits from various of the fined broadcasters.
Anywhere, anytime
: Frank Barnako, columnist and radio exec for CBS Marketwatch, is a fan and follower of blogs (as I learned over breakfast with him) and he writes about the blogging Lost Remote and I did of our industry conferences this week: Coverage by Jarvis, Bergman and Safran was straight journalism, with none of the snarky comments so common in blogs. It appears all three were motivated by nothing more than the desire to prove they could do what they set out to do using a cell phone and a network connection. No financial backing, no overhead, and no wires.
April 23, 2004
Nothing for something
: Josh Micah Marshall writes in the NY Times, echoing what Micah Sifry (and I) have been saying: Iraq is a problem for Bush and for Kerry, too: The danger for President Bush is clear: the public's patience is not unlimited, and eventual failure in Iraq will almost certainly sink his candidacy. (Sometimes the conventional wisdom is actually right.)
For John Kerry, the risks are less obvious but no less real: running a campaign that focuses the voters' gaze solely on the president's manifest failures will probably run into resistance, especially with the voters he most needs to win over, those from the ambivalent middle. Mr. Kerry is far more likely to win if he has a plan to show how he — and thus the American people — can succeed rather than simply showing how President Bush — and thus they — have failed. As Micah has been saying, you can't beat something with nothing.
Memorials and monuments
: I took some time away yesterday and finally went to the Holocaust Museum and to the Vietnam Memorial and then wandered the streets of the Capital. And I came away with thoughts about memorials and monuments and the future of the World Trade Center.
The Holocaust Museum is phenomenal: beautifully expressed, eloquently informative, devastatingly human. I have read about the museum from its opening and have seen pictures of the exhibits. But there is nothing like the experience of walking through and coming to the room that extends up and down beyond focus with pictures of the people of the shtetl Eishishok: It makes every life real, it makes every loss painful. And when I came to the room with shoes, nothing but empty shoes, I broke down.
It wasn't the facts and videos and words and knowledge that made this so immediate and heartfelt. It was the artifacts of lives.
And I went to the Vietnam Memorial: the wall. I no doubt see it through a different prism today than I would have a few years ago. I protested against the Vietnam War and would again today. I fear those lives were lost without need or meaning. I fear one of those lives could have been mine. But today I'm also aware that some are saying the same thing about the deaths in Iraq. And so I better understand the sacrifice then and now.
The differences between these two memorial are clear: One expresses its enormity by listing every life lost; the other expresses enormity with details of the lives of a few. One is about victims; the other is about soldiers; and we're free to call them heroes. It occurred to me that we often end up with a choice when facing an evil or an enemy: Do we lose the lives of the innocents or of the soldiers?
I don't mean to put either tragedy, the Holocaust or Vietnam, on the same scale as the other or as September 11th; I refuse to play the which-is-bigger, which-is-worse game. But I do see the parallels in both: September 11th was about innocents lost to the evil of our generation's fanatical evil; September 11th was about the sacrifice of soldiers -- including the fire fighters and ambulance angels -- who tried to save lives.
And then I wandered around the White House and the Capital and at first grimaced at the scale, the fauxness of everything in Washington: Every building tries to be a massive imitation of something old and revered but also cold and inhuman. The night before, I had wondered whether it wouldn't be better to be like England or France or Germany (again) and have our capital in a city with life instead of government, where you can look at people going to work without thinking of the tax dollars that pay them all. But this night, after seeing those memorials, after watching tourists in their American-flag T-shirts oggling the sight for its own sake, I decided I was wrong. We were smart to build Washington as a monument to democracy and freedom.
And so I thought about the World Trade Center through this lense. (And to those who are new here, I have a special interest in that, having both been there that day and having submitted my own memorial proposal not to see it built but to see my wounds heal). I wished that what appears at the World Trade Center -- the memorial and the museum and the buildings that grow -- have elements of all these three things: I want the enormity expressed in the names as the solemn though sterile memorial will. I want the enormity expressed in the lives, as I hope the museum will. And I want the hope and determination expressed in the buildings, which should rise as monuments and tributes to choice and freedom and democracy and opportunity and America.
Getting it wrong
: The good news is that New York Magazine pays attention to Iraqi blogs. The bad news is that they get it all wrong -- and paint it as if all the Iraqi bloggers are rabidly anti-American. They quote Zeyad from a bad day of violence and wildly out of context for him. Ditto Iraq The Model. It seems they wanted to believe that the Iraqis online are all anti-us. What liberal media?
Well, this comes in the same issue in which a special travel section recommends going to Haiti.
Stick to New York, guys. Anything over the rivers is beyond your ken.
April 22, 2004
Liveblogging
: I'm accustomed to live-blogging conferences filled with bloggers who are doing the same.
This was the first time I blogged a -- what should I call it? -- civilian event. I pulled out my Treo 600 and geeky keyboard and blogged Bush and Rumsfeld; today, I blogged the newspaper ethics panel on my laptop and, as the last sentence was spoken, published it via the Treo as modem. If I were geekier (read: more competent) I would have blogged pictures, too.
This was new and amusing to the grizzled pros around me; some were curious, a few looked faintly disapproving. IT was also new to at least one of my readers, who left a rude comment.
And it occurs to me that live-blogging is a new kind of reporting. There's no chance for analysis or even organization, but there is a chance for editing: You type what is of interest as it happens. If you want a completely masticated and digested view of an event, a news story is far better. If you want a complete and unedited view, go to CSpan. But for a quick hit of what's notable (which is what blogs are best at anyway), liveblogging has its advantages.
As I saw the stories about the event today in the New York Times, Washington Post, and Washington Times (links later when I'm not on the train), I realized that, thanks to our geeky tools of citizens media, I was the first to report to the world what these guys said. Now if they'd actually said something...
Credit where credit is due
: After the newspaper ethics session, I found myself sitting across from Tribune Co. President Jack Fuller (a long-ago colleague) at lunch. I asked whether -- thanks to all the newspaper scandals of late and weblogs -- the paper was hearing more questioning of accuracy from readers. He said he agreed with how Arthur Sulzberger, Jr., closed the session, saying that the most frightening aspect of these scandals is how few people feel compelled to tell papers of problems. But then he pointed out one case where it made a difference that could have happened only on the net: A veteran foreign correspondent was fired after making up the name, he said, of a source in Australia. Oh, I said, that's Tim Blair, famous blogger and journalist. He didn't know that it was a blogger who brought it to their attention. Now he does.
(Tim's posts are here, here, here, and here.)
More Rumsfeld
: Ran out of space in the ongoing live blogging... so a new post..
: "Terrorists are going to school on us just as we are going to school on the terrorists," he says, answering a question about the quality of training. Times change, he says. He was Reagan's Middle East adviser when our barracks were attacked by a car bomb. Up went barriers. So the terrorists started using RPGs.
: He says our tremendous success as a nation is based on trust but that is also what makes us terribly vulnerable. He says we want to win without "giving up the thing that makes our country so special: that is to say, trust."
: He says he gets CDs of a woman with an operatic voice singing his press conferences.
: Arthur Sulzberger was standing up to ask a question but it ended first. Damn.
Blogging Rumsfeld
: Now I'm at a lunch with Donald Rumsfeld (and 700 others). We can only hope that he's as tough on journalists' bosses as he is on journalists.
: He starts with comments on "the interaction with your business and government... You do something that is rare in Washington: You actually produce something."
It's really just a shaggy dog joke to start things off affab ly.
He says news organizations are criticized by many. "But interestingly, my sense is that you're not regularly criticized by each other."
He reminds us he was a cosponsor of the Freedom of Information Act.
He says he hopes his DOD has offered as much or more access than any before. He inaugurated the embed program. He has held hundreds of press briefings. "It's unbelievable. It's exhausting. It's risky."
: "Today in the global war on terror there is an often nontrivial difference between what is reported and what is happening on the ground."
He points to al Jazeera and Arab media.
In Afghanistan and Iraq, hundreds of papers are publishing, he says, and the "inner gyroscope" of the people will learn to find the truth.
Iñthe U.S., he says, print media has the space to explain more about what is happening in Iraq than where the bomb went off.
And we can report on the "vast majority" of people who are not fighting. "They make a difference but they do not make headlines....
"In Iraq and Afghanistan today there are millions of people building progress....
"Our people and the people of the world need to hear their stories."
And that's it for his prepared remarks: safe. Now questions...
: Someone from USA Today asks about a reduction in the firings of gay troops and whether there's a change in the don't ask policy. Rumsfeld says he isn't.
: From Boston University a prof asks whether the closure of a paper in Iraq has led to this insurrection.
"I love the beginning of that question: Some people think. There is nothing that some people don't think. The idea that the conflict... that is taking place in Iraq now as the result of the closing of that paper is a. a stretch and b. undoubtedly not provable."
He says the paper was inciting violence.
: Another asks about how satisfied he is with the changes he is making in the army. "The army is making signficant progress... In terms of being satisified, I'm almost genetically impatient." He says the war on terror shows the need for urgent change.
: A Florida publisher says we hear success with democracy at a local level but where is the leadership that will bring this to a national level. Rumsfeld says he's right, that local councils are more effective. He sees hope in Afghanistan as an example.
: Narda Zarchino from the SF Chronicle asks whether there are selective Service people getting ready to reinstitute the draft and if not, how will we replenish troops. "My answer is no... There were a lot of difficulties with the draft, as you may recall... A relatively small number of the population in that age group was ever drafted. A large number were exempted..." He says the task of training people who got out asap was not efficient.
So how do we sustain? He says he has 2.3 million soldiers available and all we're trying to do is maintain a much smaller force in Iraq. So rather than increasing the pool, he says, you can tap from elsewhere in the pool. He says it can be done "by better utilizing the people we have." There are 300k plus people in uniform doing tasks that need not be done by military personnel. That, he says, is a problem with civil service; a general can count on a soldier -- or a contracter -- better than a civil service worker.
: He says the armed forces need to do a better job of creating people who are specialists in various parts of the world.
Ethics and the news
: I'm at a packed (for good reason) session on ethics and the newsroom at the ASNE/NAA (newspaper editors' and publishers') conference. Among those on the panel: Arthur Sulzberger, Jr., chairman of NY Times; Jack Fuller, president of Tribune; Tony Ridder, chairman of Knight-Ridder; Greg Moore, editor of the Denver Post; John Carroll, editor of the LA Times; Karen Dunlap of journalism gabtank Poynter; and Michael Josephson, an "ethicist." My friend, Peter Bhatia, exec editor of the Oregonian, introduced them all. I'll plan on blogging what I hear first; comment later.
: Josephson: "It's not just about Jason Blair." He lists plenty of scandals pre and post Blair. "The plague of humanity has, in fact, infected the people in journalism as well." The plauge of ethics we see in business and even the Catholic church happens in journalism too.
There's a frightening litany of poll results showing worsening respect for journalism in this country.
He holds up a huge pile of material on ethics put out by journalism organizations all over.
Then he shows a picture of his kids because he says ethics start at the family. It's what I said at Bloggercon about how to handle issues of church and state in the blog world: It always comes down to personal integrity.
And he lists the "pillars of character" that my kids learn in elementary school. "Ethics isn't that tough," he says.
His Powerpoint asks: "Is a profession dedicated to asking others questions and demanding credible answers willing to do the same with respect to assertions and assumptions concerning traditional newsroom assumptions?"
: Asked whether newspapers are more than just profitable businesses, Ridder says "absolutely."
Asked how he judges his papers on their public service obligation, Ridder says they put together all their public-service journalism. Then they went and asked readers what they thought about the papers judged against seven tenets (like "trust" and "credibility").
The problem with this kind of abstraction and pedestal-placement, I think, is that it too often leads to creating long, ponderous series judged to be important (because they get prizes) but that's not what this is about: It's about covering the stories that matter better.
: Josephson says newspaper people are great "lamenters." They lament about not having enough resources. "Are those just whiners or are they prophets," he asks. Moore says it's a reality. Yes, it is.
Carroll says he can't believe that he'd be at the LA Times and think he'd need more people but he does.
Fuller says: "It's human nature, especially if you have a high calling, to want more and to do more with it."
Sulzburger says "Gutenberg probably needed another pressman desperately."
He adds that "no matter how many resources you add to a broken system if you don't fix the system you're going to be in trouble.... This is not about ethics. We could add 100 reporters to the New York Times... That's not what this is about." Ethics aren't resources. Right. It's about the every day story, the every day job. "You can't create a public editor and say that's done... You have to own this process."
: Dunlap says what's needed is (1) more training for assigning editors, (2) a better newsroom culture, (3) focus on mission.
: Launching off the post-Blair NY Times report, Josephson probes the editors on how they vet hires. "Do you handle it with the same professional diligence as a story?" his slide asks. Moore says that too often, you can't get the truth in a reference check because a former employer is scared of suits. (Hell, that's how a killer nurse was passed from hospital to hospital in my area.) Josephson says in law enforcement, candidates sign waivers clearing former employers to tell all.
: The panel is almost over and we've only gotten this far: hiring. Someone in the audience -- it turns out to be Russ Lewis ("I work at the New York Times company ... until 12:31" and Sulzburger laughs heartily) -- interrupts and says this is microscopic and there is a bigger issue of "truth in the newsroom." Right. He asks, "Is there a role for an internal audit department for journalism, for news." Now that is what the focus of this should be. And that "audit department" isn't just internal, folks; the readers and the sources are at least contributors if not members of that department as well.
: Sulzberger says the new standards person is part of that.
"If I can try to bring this up a little..." Sulzberger says -- which is just what this needs.
"I'd like to throw a larger idea out to this group. Why wait? Why wait for thekind of explosion that rocked the New York Times and is rocking USA Today... Why not go back to your newsroom with the assumption that there is someone like this in your newsroom?... Why not run the drill now?"
He says that until your newsroom believes in its soul that you're serious about this, "it isn't going to stick."
I'm not sure exactly what he means: A fishing expedition meets a witch hunt? I hope that's not it. Making reporters paranoid and timid can backfire. In my book, it's more about going forward than back: How does a newsroom find out (again, from sources and readers) what's wrong? How does the newsroom make sure that information comes in (if people think no one will listen, they won't speak)? How will the newsroom act on it?
: Fuller says Tribune is creating a statement of editorial purpose for all media. Carroll says the credibility of the paper "has to be coddled by every single person in the newsroom."
: Dunlap asks about whistleblowers in the newsroom. She says the bad guys are often known in the newsroom and the word doesn't get to managers. Carroll says its the duty of staff members who know of misdeeds to "run" to editors. Josephson says you have to do more than put it in a code, "you have to fire people who didn't tell."
: Moore says the morale of the newsroom can turn with all this. Right. Reporters should not fear beheading when they make a mistake; it is better for the paper to report the mistake and care about the truth. Ditto columnists.
: Josephson: "Passing a code has never affected conduct."
: Sulzberger gets the last word: "We had a truly horrible year at the New York Times last year." He thanks Al Siegel, the author of the commission report, for getting the paper through its year. He says papers need standards that are monitored and measured and that are specific to newsrooms.
"The scariest thing of all of last year for me... wasn't Jayson Blair.... The scariest part was that the people we lied about didn't bother to call because they just assumed that's the way newspapers worked. That's scary."
Amen and amen again.
Broadcasting anywhere, everywhere
: Getaloada this TV-station-in-a-box from Sony: Now Sony is coming out with Anycast, a switcher, audio mixer, camera controller and character generator in a single briefcase. It also has an on-board Real video encoder to send out a live stream. Costs $20,000, weighs 15 lbs, available in August. This will go the way of a Kaypro: Just as I now have the power and connectivity of a computer in my phone, so will this shrink down to a size that lets any of us broadcast anything anywhere anytime. All the world's a sound stage.
Meanwhile, in another medium
: Lost Remote's Cory Bergman and Steve Safran have been doing a great job covering the broadcasting convention (which sounds more exciting than the newspaper convention where I am). TV gets all the glory.
Let it be
: Seb summarizes Nico's article on what weblogging should become and now I comment on that (no, we're not self-referential, are we?). As various of us try to enable and encourage weblogs and citizens media -- and I'm one of those -- I also try to stay mindful that we can't 'mold it into our image of what we think it should be. It will be what it wants to be -- that's the whole point. Now if we can help it along that path (with technology or financial support or education or attention) great. But the beauty of citizens' media is that it is what it wants to be, not what somebody else wants it to be.
It's a glass of water, I swear
: Steve Yelvington moblogs me.
April 21, 2004
ASNE links
: The good news about today's session on blogs with editors was that there was a session on blogs with editors. The room was full; they're curious; they know there's something happening here that's worth their attention. They're still not sure how to relate to blogs and what it means to their business. But there's something here.
I regret that I could not get bloggers -- real bloggers, real people like you and you -- invited to the session. It tried. I huffed and I puffed and I blew hot air and nothing happened.
I promised the editors in attendance that I would put up links that were mentioned by me or my fellow panelists. So, editors, click, on the "more" to get those links....
ASNE links: Technorati ... Kinka ...
Instapundit ... Mickey Kaus ... Volokh ... Andrew Sullivan ... Virginia Postrel ... Wonkette ... Spinsanity ... Factcheck.org ... Oxblog ... Dan Gillmor ... Philadelphia Daily News Lockerroom blog ...
Something for nothing
: Iraq is turning into a bad campaign issue for both candidates.
The Washington Post editorial page today calls John Kerry on a flop (half a flip-flop) on Iraq. When he was fighting anti-war Howard Dean, Kerry set democracy as the goal in Iraq and now he has lowered that standard. The Post quotes him: "...I have always said from day one that the goal here . . . is a stable Iraq, not whether or not that's a full democracy." ...
Where once he named democracy as a task to be completed, and the alternative to "cutting and running" or a "false success," Mr. Kerry now says democracy is optional. Where once he warned against setting the conditions for an early but irresponsible withdrawal of U.S. forces, now he does so himself by defining the exit standard as "stability," a term that could describe Saudi Arabia or Iran -- or the Iraq of Saddam Hussein. So Kerry will cut and run to contrast himself with the prowar George Bush.
At today's ASNE lunch with Bush, Burl Osborne asked -- in response to the Post -- whether democracy in Iraq is desirable or necessary. You can guess what Bush said. And here's what the Post said: There is no question that achieving even a rudimentary democracy in Iraq will be tough, and weakness in administration planning and implementation has made it tougher. At best democracy will take years to consolidate; at worst, it will prove unachievable during the U.S. mission. The past weeks of violence have been, or should have been, sobering to any observer. Yet on goals Mr. Bush is right, not only in a moral sense but from the perspective of U.S. security too. Iraq is a country of diverse communities; if its differences are not arbitrated by some form of democratic politics, then it can be held together only by brute force. The wielder of that force is likely to be hostile to the democratic world and, like Saddam Hussein or the mullahs of neighboring Iran, to seek defense by means of terrorism or weapons of mass destruction.
We believe a successful political outcome is still possible; others disagree. But Mr. Kerry's shift on such a basic question after just a few months is troubling and mistaken. As Micah Sifry has said and said again, Kerry "can't beat something with nothing." Now he's offering less than nothing: defeat and desertion and no democracy. For shame.
: But Bush took his blows on the Post op-ed page. Fareed Zakaria echoes a theme from Tom Friedman and others: We need more troops in Iraq. We need to bring order. Iraq remains unstable and insecure. If this problem isn't solved, the United Nations can sprinkle all the magic dust it wants and it will not matter.
In fact, things could get worse. After July 1, the United States will have to combat insurgents by working through a sovereign Iraqi government that will have its own constraints....
The blunt truth is that we still need more troops in Iraq. Yes, it would be nice to have foreign troops or to have well-trained Iraqi forces. But for now neither option exists. We have a choice between more American troops and continued instability. You can't beat something with less than enough.
The sad truth: Neither side is offering a plan for Iraq.
10-4
: Afterwards, I skip the rubber chicken and find the nearest burrito, where I find 10 Secret Service agents grabbing a bite, all in their dark suits with red-star lapel pins and damned ethernet plugs sticking out of their sleeves. I'm iin line ahead of a few of them in my own dark suit (no lapel pin, no ethernet, no gun, but with beard). The lady behind the register asks, "Police?" I laugh. No, I say, I'm not as tough as them and, looking at one, I say, the beard's a giveaway, eh? He won't answer. State secret.
Questioning Bush
: Now Bush takes questions.
In his talk, he has the manner of a high-school principle: utterly sure, lecturing his audience.
Burl Osborne asks what he says to people who fear we will be hit again by terrorists. Bush says, well, people say Madrid and that's why they believe we will be hit again. Insert Patriot Act renewal plug.
The questions are prepared and are being delivered by Osborne.
After a long-winded answer about terror, Bush says, "Last question."
Osborne starts to ask about his opponents stance on Iraq. "I'm not going to talk about my opponent here," says Bush.
Blogging Bush
: I'm at the AP lunch for Bush.
The head of the AP offered a toast to the President. (Slight ironic chortle.)
He turns to the dias and greets "the politburo."
He says he will talk to us about maintaining lasting prosperity "and then I'll be glad to duck some questions."
He's talking about what we need to maintain prosperity: a balanced legal system with tort reform... controlling health care costs in consumer hands...
He pushes again for competitive broadband available to every house by 2007. He says we should not tax access. "The federal government should deny taxation to broadband access." And we need good regulatory policy, he adds.
"We're lagging a little bit on broadband technology."
He lists open trade and an energy plan. "I think we need to open up a full-scale debate... I think we need 'nulclear' energy..."
Add job-training programs...
"There needs to be permanency in the tax code... We don't need to be raising taxes right now."
"If we can ever get rid of the death tax it'll get rid of 30 percent of the tax code, they tell me." Applause on that one.
"My job is to like think beyond the immediate," he says in conclusion.
Oops, then he adds security. "We're at war. And it's a different kind of war... There's no such thing as innocence or guilt... They attacked today in Basra and Riyadh... In this war against this enemy, we must use all our assets.... We must rely on our alliances. And I'll tell you the cooperation has been good... Alliances are really important in the war against terror. International bodies can be really important in the war against terror if they're effective. They're lousy if they're not affective. We're in a results-oriented game now."
On the terrorists: "These guys are tough and sophisticated and smart. We just have to be smarter."
"We're making pretty good progress. If al Qaeda were a board of directors, the chairman and vice chairman are still out there but the middle management is gone."
Bush plugs the movie Osama. "It's hard for the American mentality to grasp how barbaric the Taliban was was toward woman... So see the movie. It speaks better than I can speak."
He replays the Iraq story; nothing new there. "The world is better off for it and so are the people of Iraq... Democracy is growing in the heart of the Middle East."
"I think everybody needs to be free and I think everyone can self-govern."
He tells about meeting Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi. He likes Elvis. He likes Gary Cooper. "He comes up to me and says, 'You like Cooper?' I say, 'Yeah, I like Cooper.' Then I finally figured out what he meant."
On Iraq: "We're not going to cut and run if I'm in the Oval Office... I believe freedom in the heart of the Middle East is a historic chance to chance the world."
On Korea: "Different threats are dealt with different ways."
"The long-term strategy of this government is to spread freedom across the world." He says a free Iraq and Palestine will be agents of peace.
On Sharon and the pullout: "In my judgment, the world should have said, 'Thank you, Ariel.'" One person applauds. Bush notes the silence.
"The Palestinian people have failed their people year after year after year."
Whereabouts
: Spoke with newspaper editors on blogs this morning (more later) now going to hear Bush speak to said editors. Later...
It's about links
: Ken Sands of the Spokesman-Review, the print guy who really gets blogs, has a great directory of blogs in his area. Sands says just what I'm saying this morning to newspaper editors: “Journalism traditionally has been reporters and editors performing the gatekeeping function. We decide what the news is. But with the Web, now everybody has the ability to become published...”
“Rather than be afraid of it or work against it, we should be going with the flow. If this is where our communication is going as a society, we should try to figure out how to facilitate it.” [via PJnet]
The Pulitzers, they ain't
: Among best news sites, the Webby Awards nominate Al-Jazeera. It's a joke, right? Internet irony. Right?
The Daily Stern
: VENDETTA: Don't believe there's an FCC vendetta against Howard Stern? Here's a gun with a wisp that looks strangely like smoke coming out of it:
FCC Chairman Michael Powell addressed the National Association of Broadcasters yesterday and someone was a good enough reporter to ask him about Oprah Winfrey getting away with doing exactly what the FCC fined Stern for -- defining sexual collolquialisms: Powell dismissed accusations that the FCC's actions are unevenly enforced, shock jock Howard Stern, whose show has been fined more than any other, has accused the FCC and the Republican administration of pursuing a vendetta. On his Web site he accuses the commission of going after him, but ignoring Oprah Winfrey, who received an award for her achievements in broadcasting on Monday.
"I don't agree with that," he told reporters after his Q&A. "The commission has said nothing about Oprah Winfrey. There are people complaining about it, but we'll see."
While Powell defended the commission's even-handedness, commission aides admitted that Oprah is probably untouchable. It's more difficult to fine a beloved figure like her, than to go after lightning rod like Stern.
Wonkette revisited
: Wonkette -- aka Ana Marie Cox -- was on TV last night. The beginning of a career, I tell you. Rumor has it she'll replace Tom Brokaw.
: Nick Denton defends Wonkette against the biased reporting on Wonkette What illiberal media?
: So there I was at the big party for the nation's editors and publishers at Union Station and a friend of mine who tries to dismiss blogs and my passion for them thinks he has me cornered when an editor from the Baltimore Sun starts complaining about the form and up comes a writer for Ad Age who, my friend is sure, will join in. He's looking for a blog cat fight. But what happens instead: The Sun guy and the Ad Age guy go on and on about how they love Wonkette; the Sun Guy quotes her at length. I tell my friend he is sadly behind the times.
April 20, 2004
Turn-off turn-off week
: Reason editor Nick Gillespie skewers and roasts the bozos who push TV Turn-Off Week -- which is like pushing turn-off culture week; turn-off interaction week; turn-off curiosity week. If there's one television rerun more dispiriting than endless iterations of Scooby-Doo, The Brady Bunch, or the genre du jour of plastic surgery shows such as Extreme Makeover and The Swan, it is surely that annual ritual of self-loathing and mortification of the flesh that is TV Turnoff Week...
Ten—or maybe 15 or 20—years into the future, we'll be talking about Web Turnoff Week and thinking warmly of the days when we used to cuddle up in front of the TV with a good show.
Blogging the rails
: I'm on the Acela to Washington for the American Society of Newspaper Editors blog panel (blogging to follow) and I'm online thanks to my Treo and PDANet. High-speed mobile blogging.
The Citizens' Media Association: a proposal
: Out of the Bloggercon session on blogs as business, the clear and resounding wish of the assembled bloggers was to start a trade association that will enable business and sell the wonders of our new medium.
So here is a proposal for the Citizens' Media Association (working title), a first step for discussion.
I was frankly surprised at the popular acclaim for the idea of such a group. I'd added it to the wiki the night before the session, thinking it would bring polite chuckles at best. But when one of the bloggers at the session said it out loud, an epidemic of head-nodding evertook the SRO crowd. To make sure it wasn't just polite conference-think -- people do lots of nodding at conferences -- I had the crowd vote on what they thought was the single most important thing we needed to make blogs work as businesses. It was about even: a trade association and better stats on the size of the blogosphere (and the latter, most agreed, would be a task of the former). So a trade association it is.
Note that I'm expanding this past weblogs, for we don't know what will develop now that the people own their own printing presses and broadcast towers. And the last thing we need is to get into a fit of exclusionary orthodoxy about what is and isn't a weblog.
If you want a model, start with the Online Publishers Association, which sells marketers on the effectiveness and importance of quality online sites. Look also to the Interactive Advertising Bureau, which is more concerned with such matters as ad standards.
The Citizens' Media Association
The Association will:
> Gather and disseminate statistics on the size and success of citizens' media in terms of both audience and revenue: total audience; total traffic; audience demographics; author demographics; audience behavior online; audience buying behavior; categorization of interest areas; census of languages and national origins of sites; total projected ad revenue; total projected commerce revenue; collection of success stories.
> Set standards for the means of gathering audience, traffic, and demographic data and for advertising units and measurements.
> Protect citizens media practitioners by seeking libel and liability insurance and by seeking, through courts and lobbying, to assure that the rights of a free press extend to citizens who create media online.
> Promote the medium with advertisers, marketers, media, and newsmakers.
Membership will be open to any creators of citizens' media online. The association will be governed by an executive committee elected by the membership.
The Association will be supported by member dues and, if possible, a foundation grant to encourage the growth of this democratizing medium.
Next step: A meeting of volunteers to establish a steering committee and set its goals for drawing up a mission statement, bylaws, and a budget.
How's that sound?
A Saudi blog
: There's a Saudi blogger! called Religious Policeman. His mission: A Saudi man's diary of life in the "Magic Kingdom", where the Religious Police ensure that everything remains as it was in the Middle Ages.
In Memory of the lives of 15 Makkah Schoolgirls, lost when their school burnt down on Monday, 11th March, 2002. The Religious Police would not allow them to leave the building, nor allow the Firemen to enter. The latest post: When the Saudi people finally rise up in revolt and throw out the House of Saud, it won't be for democratic reform, and it won't be for an islamic republic. It'll be about mobile phones. So there's the first crack in the wall. I'll predict we'll soon be seeing more Saudi blogs... and more and more...[Thanks, Easycure!]
Frequent fly
: From AdAge (print edition only): Viagra is introducing a frequent customer program.
Buy a bunch of pills and get some more free.
As if guys who use the pill a lot actually need further motivation.
Maybe they should come up with a more creative giveaway:
For every pill you buy, get two free cigarettes.
The Daily Stern
: TAKE IT BACK: A wide-ranging group of concerned Americans -- broadcasting companies, performers' unions, Margaret Cho, Penn & Teller, the ACLU, Minnesota Public Radio -- filed a complaint with the FCC yesterday asking it to revoke its decision calling Bono's F-word profane.
Written by Robert Corn-Revere -- a First Amendment attorney I spoke with for my soon-to-appear story on all this -- and a colleague, it points out the absurdity of the FCC's position (and, by extension, Congress' efforts to make things even worse). Lowlights: The Commission’s decision that the isolated use of an unplanned and unscripted expletive is both “indecent” and “profane” represents an unconstitutional expansion of the government’s intrusion into broadcast content.... [T]he FCC’s decision is a rule of general applicability that already is exerting a substantial chilling effect on constitutionally-protected speech.
With this decision the Commission has abandoned the regulatory restraint mandated by well-established judicial precedent. The indecency policy has long been recognized as a very limited exception to the basic constitutional command that the government cannot reduce viewers or listeners to viewing or hearing only what is fit for a child....
The Commission’s aggressive crackdown on “coarse” speech has sent shock waves through the broadcast industry and the lack of clear guidelines, coupled with threats of draconian administrative action, has forced licensees to censor speech that unquestionably is protected by the First Amendment. By prescribing delayed broadcasts as an “element” of its indecency calculus and putting station licenses at risk even for unintentional slips of the tongue, the FCC is undermining the ability to engage in live broadcasting in America....
[Petitioners urge the Commission to] seriously examine whether the system of government regulation of content announced in this Order, including its threats of potential license revocations, is fundamentally incompatible with the First Amendment of the Constitution. There's a fun little legal cha-cha over what variants of the F-word are now no-nos: Despite its purported attempt to clarify its indecency standards by decreeing that “any use of [the ‘F-Word’] or a variation, in any context, inherently has a sexual connotation,” the Commission has only made matters more confusing. To begin with, it is not even clear whether the FCC is purporting to ban just the word “f***” or would also restrict its euphemisms, including the term “F-Word.” While in other circumstances it might be reasonable to assume the government intends only to ban the actual word and not its semantic replacements, it is not safe for licensees to rest on such an assumption where a wrong guess can cost a station a huge fine or lead to license revocation.... Moreover, the Commission warned broadcasters that it intends to interpret its mandate broadly, to prohibit “vulgar and coarse language” including “words (or variants thereof) that are as highly offensive as the “F-Word.” As a consequence, many other commonly understood euphemisms in addition to the “F-Word” may be unsafe to broadcast. And then there is the delicate problem of profanity as a form of blasphemy and blasphemy as a matte | |