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July 16, 2004

I have a headache

: Stephen Hawking says he was wrong about black holes:

'I've been thinking about this problem for the last 30 years, and I think I now have the answer to it,' he told the BBC's Newsnight programme on Thursday. 'A black hole only appears to form but later opens up and releases information about what fell inside. So we can be sure of the past and predict the future.'

I have no idea what he's talking about.

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Travel notes

: So I'm in Aspen to attend an Aspen Institute session on journalism; more on that later. A few travel notes:

: Hadn't seen this before: Whenever the cockpit door was opened on my United flight, two stewardesses went up front; they wheeled the meal cart in front of the aisle to block it; one stewardess opened the door; the other rode shotgun on the cart. She just stared down the aisle. All that stood between us and doom should some insane Islamofascists decide to attack is a stewardess and a lunch cart. Weird.

: Also weird: As the guy in the next seat finished reading each of many newspapers and magazines, he tore them up. Looked normal otherwise. Had to be some method to the madness. Maybe he runs newsstands and hates people sharing publications.

: Got on the puddle-jumper to Aspen and we were introduced to our pilot, Bob. Hmmm. Pilot Bob. Doesn't instill confidence.

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Martha

: Just heard on the TV in the airport lounge: Five months. Sounds like the minimum under the sentencing guidelines. I agree with Rex that she should not be going to jail. She has suffered plenty and the real corporate criminals from Enron et al haven't suffered enough.

: NYTimes.com beat the cable sites to the news. Good for us old print guys.

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Better mousetrap

: Ev announces two great changes in Blogger: First, WYSIWYG editing and second -- I like this even better; I downright love this; I lust after this -- when you cut-and-paste text, it keeps the links intact.

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How much influence?

: I've been arguing nonstop, as you sadly know, that blogs influence the influencers. Journalist blogger Om Malik now has some proof and numbers and VC Ed Sim is already building this into business plans.

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F em

: Go to GoogleNews and search on "emmy" and you'll find no shortage of (meaningless) complaints about the (meaningless) awards: which shows were robbed. Well, here's mine (and my office colleagues'): Deadwood. My colleague Peter Hauck thinks Hollywood just doesn't get it. I also think they'd be afraid to award a show that says the F word so often (to be precise: 831 per season, 69.3 per episode, 1.23 per minute).

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Blogchild

: A BBDO exec started blogging after the Daimler Chrsyler talk the other day. First they blog. They they buy!

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Halt! You're fired!

: The local paper reports that Donald Trump's goon guards are stopping drivers from using a public road on his new golf course just built on John Delorean's former spread.

Less happy were residents who had been stopped and questioned by security guards when they tried to cross through the Trump-owned section of Cowperthwaite.

“Is it fair to put up stone columns and a gate, to make it seem as if the road is not accessible if it really is accessible?” asked Nucci.

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Fighting shrill with shrill

: MoveOn is not good for liberals' image. It makes them (us) look so ... what is it? ... shrill? TV Barn (via IWantMedia) reports that MoveOn will launch "two major legal actions challenging the network’s use of the tagline 'Fair and Balanced'." And on what absurd basis are they filing those suits? The constitutional right to PR? Aren't there better causes to be fighting for?

: Tina Brown defends FoxNews against the vein-bulgers:

That's why if you're a Brit like me it's hard to get too riled up about Robert Greenwald's new documentary, "Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism," currently getting guerrilla distribution on the Web and slated for a bunch of Sunday night screening parties sponsored by MoveOn.org. The movie, which excited a packed panel discussion Tuesday night hosted by New School University's World Policy Institute, seeks to prove that Fox News's claim to be "fair and balanced" is, to put it mildly, false advertising.

Like all good agitprop, "Outfoxed" exists more to confirm dark hunches than to change minds. It's unlikely, after all, that passionate devotees of Bill O'Reilly are trawling West Side cocktail parties and gate-crashing MoveOn.org screening events looking to have their minds changed. But this is the year when it's not enough to vote, you have to vote with your veins popping and your eyes bulging. Screeching to the choir is all the rage....

What the movie ignores is the real reason Fox has remained so popular: It's not the politics. It's the flair, stupid. It's the same with Murdoch's racy tab, the New York Post, which is read like a ransom note every morning by all the people who most deplore its point of view....

The problem with Fox News, therefore, is not Fox News. It's the others. It's that Roger Ailes's brilliant belligerence and formidable TV skills are not matched enough with reportorial testosterone and creativity elsewhere....

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