Snot The New York Times
: Two stories in The New York Times really got under by blogger's craw this morning as I flew up to World Series Town:
In the Circuits section, they chronicled the rise of cat-blogging (without getting the essential joke that these folks are making fun of those who make fun of bloggers as folks who just put up pictures of their cats). The lead:
In the vitriolic world of political Web logs, two polar extremes are Eschaton (atrios.blogspot.com), a liberal, often anti-Bush site with a passionate following, and Instapundit (www.instapundit.com), where an equally fervent readership goes for hearty praise of the Administration.
It would seem unlikely that the two blogs' authors could see eye-to-eye about anything. Yet Eschaton's Duncan Black (known as Atrios) and Instapundit's Glenn Reynolds have both taken part in a growing practice: turning over a blog on Friday to cat photographs.
Vitriolic?
Vitriolic? I'll show you vitriolic!
That makes us look like a bunch of frothing nutjobs. It is essentially condescending and insulting.
Then this Jim Rutenberg story in the news section wrote about bloggers dogging big media on issues of accuracy and fairness. Well, good, about time. But this, too, paints us as more of an angry mob than a sensible bunch of people who happen to be citizens and voters and newspaper readers. By making us look so angry, it marginalizes us as cultish.
Journalists covering the campaign believe the intent is often to bully them into caving to a particular point of view. They insist the efforts have not swayed them in any significant way, though others worry the criticism could eventually have a chilling effect...
The harshest criticism comes from sites with openly political leanings....
But the most personal critiques originate among the political blogs - especially from the left - run by individuals who use news media reports for their often-heated discussions.
Many sites urge visitors to personally call reporters and news organizations and send e-mail messages, which can number in the hundreds daily....
The New York Times is also a favorite target of critics of all political persuasions. The paper came in for particularly harsh criticism on conservative sites this week for its article about the disappearance of 380 tons of powerful explosives from an Iraqi military complex....
On a Web site named after Adam Nagourney, The Times's chief political correspondent, contributors mix crude personal insults with accusations that Mr. Nagourney and other Washington-based reporters are too easy on Mr. Bush.
The NBC anchor Tom Brokaw recently likened the tone of the Internet coverage of the CBS National Guard report, presented by the anchor Dan Rather, to a "political jihad." In an interview last week Mr. Brokaw said CBS News had clearly made mistakes. But, he said, "I think there were people just lying in the Internet bushes, waiting to strike, and I think that particular episode gave them a big opportunity."
Add up those bits and we look like a hate squad going on attack.
Well, Mr. Rutenberg, think there might be another angle to the story, eh? Perhaps it's that big media is messing up and has had no check for too long. Perhaps it's that once-passive readers now have their own press and have something to say and it's time for you to listen. Perhaps if you try hard to open your eyes and read your own story again, you might smell a bias here -- against the public you supposedly serve.
The whole world is watching
: Seth Godin has an intriguing post (of course) on the notion that behavior changes when you know someone is watching.
Technology allows the world to watch. Seth wonders whether rudely stupid, stupidly rude clerks in a store would be such bozos if there were cameras on them -- that is, if they knew they were being watched.
What are weblogs and the internet doing to irritate the powerful in media (see the next post, above) and politics and business but enable the people to watch?
We can take pictures of you if you're behaving like a bozo. We can take video of you. We can write about it. We can put it on the internet for all the world to see.
Please, no
: NBC and ABC are each making miniseries based on the 9/11 Commission report.
Please, no.
There are so many reasons not to:
It's too soon.
It's exploitive.
It's another effort to enshrine the 9/11 Commission report as gospel. It isn't.
There hasn't been a decent miniseries in decades and the thought of turning this national tragedy into network kitsch is unbearable. From one story:
Yost, who also created and executive produced the NBC police drama "Boomtown" and worked on the elaborate HBO miniseries "From the Earth to the Moon" and "Band of Brothers," acknowledged that he had taken on a highly ambitious project that would take at least a year to research and develop. Most of the specifics about the project, including the number of hours, narrative approach and how it would be scheduled, have yet to be hammered out.
"I know I'll be crying every day that I work on this," Yost said. "It's an incredibly emotional story and an incredibly compelling story. It's an incredible honor and a responsibility, and I don't take it lightly, but it is one that I am eager to take on."
From another:
NBC Entertainment prexy Kevin Reilly said he wanted to create a "cultural event" for TV in the vein of "Roots" and "The Day After."
You offensive twit, 9/11 already is a "cultural event." We don't need a network to make it that.
The future of blogs
: Go read the rest of Glenn Reynolds good two-part column on the future of blogs.
The Daily Stern: FCC assignment desk
: I put in a Freedom of Information request to the FCC asking to get the whopping 159 complaints that led them to decree that Fox had corrupted America by suggesting sex on its Married by America. I have heard no reply.
I'm serious, FCC. I'm a reporter, too. I want to see those "complaints." I expect I'll find more work by Xerox than by the citizenry.
On Stern this morning, he raised another good story: Michael Powell said during Stern's phone call with him that the FCC had investigated and found Viacom to be in some conspiracy with Janet Jackson to expose her breast. But Janet Jackson said she did this on her own. So why is Viacom being fined and not Jackson? If there is no proof of this conspiracy, then the FCC's fine is clearly a punitive political action, not the result of regulatory investigation.
So a good reporter should file an FOI request for the investigation files on the Janet Jackson case.
And while you're at it, file an FOI request for the complaints against Stern and Jackson. Here I know you will find that they come from only a few sources with a lot of Xeroxing. It's not the people standing up as one -- hell, it's a tiny proportion of people in any case -- but instead an organized pressure group.
Is it government's job to respond to every pressure group with a Xerox machine? If so, the libertarians should be about ready to dismantle government by now. And Area 51 should be opened. And we'd be out of the UN....
These are good stories. Any real reporters out there?
Podcasting
: Feedburner has started a service to create Podcast feeds. Which is nice... except I don't understand it. Step-by-step, please.
Glass blogs
: I hate it when I think of the right answer after the TV lights are off. Last night on Capitol Report, John Hinderaker went on about how The New York Times is a front for the Kerry campaign and then said the difference between him as a blogger and big media is that he gets his facts right. He repeated it again. And what I should have said is: John, don't make the same mistake The Times -- and 60 Minutes and the rest of big media -- make, acting as if you get everything right, putting yourself up on a pedestal. For it's a mighty steep fall off it.
Ready for their close-ups
: MSNBC is going blog-crazy on election night:
MSNBC Political Analyst Joe Trippi will be joined by Ana Marie Cox of "Wonkette" and John Hinderaker of "Powerline" for up-to-the-minute analysis of what's happening on the web from the MSNBC Bloggers' Cafe at "Democracy Plaza." Online, the MSNBC blogging team, led by Trippi, will produce four live blogs for MSNBC.com, covering every key aspect of Election Day. MSNBC's Bloggers' Cafe at www.TV.MSNBC.com will host Chris Matthews' Hardblogger which will cover all things Presidential while Keith Olbermann's blog, Bloggermann, focuses on Senate, House and gubernatorial races, and key state propositions. Joe Scarborough's blog, Congressman Joe, will put the media in the spotlight. Dan Abrams' blog, Sidebar, will cover voting issues and the legal angles surrounding the election. Each blog will showcase not only Trippi's blogging team and MSNBC talent but will introduce new contributors to MSNBC.com-- Citizen Journalists. The Citizen Journalists will be viewers and netizens helping us document this historical day through their own personal blogging. The Citizen Journalists will report from their areas on what they personally see happening at the polls and on the streets on Election Day.
[
via LiveRemote]
Whereabouts
: I'll be in the city without Rs (but with a pennant) today to talk with a class run by Kathleen Mathews (of D.C. TV fame); then onto Chicago to talk citizens' media with a certain big ad agency. Blogging where wi-fi allows.
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