BuzzMachine
by Jeff Jarvis

November 30, 2004

Wheel of Free Speech

: Pat Sajak -- Pat Sajak! -- lambasts Hollywood's creative community for not expressing outrage over the murder of Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh.

So, again I ask, where is the outrage from Hollywood’s creative community? I mean, talk about a violation of the right of free speech!3gp converter serrial number

Perhaps they are afraid that their protests would put them in danger. That, at least, is a defensible position. If I were Michael Moore, I would much rather rail against George W. Bush, who is much less likely to have me killed, than van Gogh’s murderer and the threat to creative freedom he brings. Besides, a man of Moore’s size would provide a great deal of “bulletin board” space....3gp converter serrial number

There’s another possibility; one that seems crazy on the surface, but does provide an explanation for the silence, and is also in keeping with the political climate in Hollywood. Is it just possible that there are those who are reluctant to criticize an act of terror because that might somehow align them with President Bush, who stubbornly clings to the notion that these are evil people who need to be defeated? Could the level of hatred for this President be so great that some people are against anything he is for, and for anything he is against?

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Color him Orange

: So Tom Ridge is gone. I have no regrets and had many complaints. Ridge tended toward the twinkie (cute drawings of disaster; duct tape; color codes) rather than the decisive. As much as I'd like Rudy Guliani to replace him, I doubt he would (thankless job that won't advance his career). But I hope we get somebody strong. 3gp converter serrial number

Tom, we hardly knew ye

: Just saw what was practically an obituary for Tom Brokaw on Today as he leaves his anchor chair X-on-the-studio-floor this week. 3gp converter serrial number

The irony of this slatherfest is that network anchors try so hard to have very little personality. Oh, they have some personality, but only just enough to seem human, without quirks (besides his speech impediment) or passions or emotions or opinons. It's engineered personality. 3gp converter serrial number

And now we are being asked to miss and practically mourn this anchor as if he were a dear personal friend, our news goombah. 3gp converter serrial number

But he wasn't. He was a guy who read the news, a news cipher. And he was damned good at it. I regularly watched Brokaw, in part because I was raised in a Huntley-Brinkley home, in part because I watch NBC entertainment shows, and in part because I do like the job NBC News and Brokaw do. But he was no pal of mine. No offense, Tom, but I won't miss you. I wish you well in your retirement; I hope you enjoy your wealth and relaxation. But I will feel no vacuum in my life. 3gp converter serrial number

And just wait until we see the video Taj Mahals that surely are being built already for Dan Rather (which, yes, will ignore Rathergate and other controversies). And he's the guy with the very fake personality, what with all his downhomeisms studded in the news like raisins in muffins (I still wonder whether he doesn't have secret downhomeism writers feeding him his hokum). 3gp converter serrial number

I'm not decrying personality on the news. To the contrary, I've been saying that the audience is responding to personality -- witness Jon Stewart and Bill O'Reilly -- and what we need is transparency about a news person's perspective. 3gp converter serrial number

But what we do not need is fake personality.3gp converter serrial number

So as we say goodbye to Dan and Tom, I hope what we're really doing is signing off on the era of tapioca humanity in the news. The networks don't know it yet, but that's what's really happening. 3gp converter serrial number

: And I know the seduction of creating a personality for the camera. Back when I was a TV critic, I appeared on TV often and made pilots of regular segments on TV about TV (which were never picked up; I was always told that the subject matter was too touchy to deal with in a competitive environment but it also could have been that I simply sucked). During those scripted shticks, I often found myself putting on the personality producers told me take on (yes, they really did tell me to smile with my voice). 3gp converter serrial number

Lately, thanks to this blog, I've been doing the TV thing again but because I'm not really selling anything (other than the cause of free speech or my ego), I'm not trying to slap on a personality like the makeup they slap on my face. I'm me. I'm excitable. I talk fast. I'm opinionated. I don't know whether it's good TV but I do know that it's a lot more fun and less worrisome than trying to act like somebody. It's liberating. 3gp converter serrial number

So I repeat my advice to CBS: You should replace Dan Rather with Jon Stewart. And if you don't have the balls to do that -- which you won't -- then, yes, you should follow the rumors and at least hire Tim Russert, who seems to have some real personality. Don't hire another cipher, another everyman, another engineered personality. Hire a human. 3gp converter serrial number

: UPDATE: Says Terry Heaton, who knows TV news: "It's a scary time for people in television news, because the blue smoke and mirrors has been revealed for what it is."3gp converter serrial number

Shoeless Jeff

: When I go through airport security, I take off my shoes and jackets and pull out my laptop and stow my change and phone and get through quickly and when it's all done -- even when I've switched flights at the last minute and, as a result, end up being flagged for special screening -- I always say, "Thank you." I'm damned glad these guys are inspecting us because I've seen what happens when we don't. 3gp converter serrial number

And so I got pissed reading Joe Sharky's travel column in The Times today about a guy who gets pissy about taking off his shoes.

Mr. Coop, who is from San Jose, Calif., says he will travel about 160,000 miles this year. "If I have enough time, I will decline to take my shoes off, just to see what's going to happen on the other side," he says.
Twit.3gp converter serrial number

Now I certainly understand women getting pissy about being felt up by pervy TSA guys and I expect the bad guys to be exposed and fired. 3gp converter serrial number

But taking off your shoes? What's the big, boy? We actually know that a bozo terrorist tried to use his shoe as a weapon of mass murder. So take off your damned shoes, guy, and stop wasting the time of the TSA agents -- whom I've found to be consistently courteous and professional -- and the people in line behind you. 3gp converter serrial number

: When I was in Toronto, I went up the CN Tower -- which, by the way, was a weird experience, since I already don't like heights and after 9/11 I have nightmares about city towers; I stayed to the back of the elevator and wouldn't go anywhere near the glass for 1,200 feet up (yes, kids, Daddy's a wimp). But one thing made me comfortable: Every tourist had to stand inside a contraption with little jets that spritzed air all over us. "What's it detecting?" I asked the guard, who looked uncomfortable and said nothing. "Explosives?" I asked. He nodded. "I'm glad you do it," I said. "So am I," he said. 3gp converter serrial number

Another media-man blogger

: Simon Waldman, head of digital publishing at the Guardian and a good guy to have lunch with, has a new blog. 3gp converter serrial number

November 29, 2004

More media on media

: I'm to be on CNBC's Bullseye with Michael Wolff to talk about the indecency absurdity tonight at 6:30ish ET. 3gp converter serrial number

Odd bedfellows

: Still catching up on weekend reading, I find the darnedest defense of Dan Rather from Bill O'Reilly.

The ordeal of Dan Rather goes far beyond the man himself. It speaks to the presumption of guilt that now rules the day in America. Because of a ruthless and callow media, no citizen, much less one who achieves fame, is given the benefit of the doubt when it comes to allegations or personal attacks. The smearing of America is in full bloom.
Methinks that Bill is still a tad sensitive about his own dragging-through-mud he now is contractually forbidden from talking about: his sexual harassment settlement.
Right-wing talk radio in particular pounded Kerry and also bludgeoned Dan Rather for his role in another smear incident - the charges against President Bush about his National Guard service. Again, Rather was found guilty without a fair hearing. Charges that he intentionally approved bogus documents that made Bush look bad were leveled and widely believed. It was chilling.
That wasn't really the issue, Bill. It was that Rather took 12 days to even acknowledge that he could have made a mistake. He refused to leave or look down from that pedestal he built for himself. He hurt the credibility of the news business and its relationship with its public as a result. I never thought or said he intentionally lied. He intentionally ignored the truth, though.
I believe Rather, along with Andy Rooney, Walter Cronkite and other guardsmen of the old CBS News, is liberal in his thinking. That is certainly a legitimate debate - how for years CBS News has taken a rather progressive outlook. But holding a political point of view is the right of every American, and it does not entitle people to practice character assassination or deny the presumption of innocence. Dan Rather was slimed. It was disgraceful.
But, Bill, the issue for you and for Dan is transparency: admitting your perspective -- or, if you prefer, bias -- to the public so they can fairly judge what you say.
But you'll be seeing more of this kind of thing in the future. All famous and successful Americans are now targets. Unscrupulous people know that any accusation can be dumped on the Internet and within hours the mainstream media will pick it up.
Or mainstream media will make a mistake and the Internet will, within hours, correct it. Works both ways, Bill.
This is not your grandfather's country anymore.
And I, for one, am glad of it. 3gp converter serrial number

: UPDATE: Winfield Myers calls it the O'Reilly Fracture. 3gp converter serrial number

First they came for Howard Stern... and then they came for you

: Few were standing up protesting when the FCC went after Howard Stern.... Few were yelling about the slippery slope of government censorship.... Until it put a chill on airing Saving Private Ryan. Then the newspaper editorials finally started to act alarmed, as well they should. 3gp converter serrial number

Here are two more that should alarm you: 3gp converter serrial number

First, here's a Billboard story saying that the FCC will go after satellite next:

With envelope-pushing air talent like Howard Stern and Opie & Anthony flocking to the less-restricted refuge of satellite radio, could the Federal Communications Commission be far behind?3gp converter serrial number

Specifically, could the FCC enforce its indecency rules -- which Stern claims drove him away from terrestrial radio -- on satellite radio too?3gp converter serrial number

That's exactly what Saul Levine is hoping for. On Oct. 29, Levine, the president of Mt. Wilson FM Broadcasters, filed a Petition for Rulemaking to amend Part 25 of the FCC's pending satellite radio rules to include an indecency provision.3gp converter serrial number

While legal experts say subscription radio enjoys deeper First Amendment protections than free radio, Levine's petition argues that the FCC is, in fact, empowered to enforce indecency rules on satellite radio and asks the commission to "level (the) playing field." ...3gp converter serrial number

According to Levine's petition, the FCC already has subjected satellite radio to Equal Employment Opportunity and political broadcasting rules and policies. What's more, the petition says, the type of radio service (i.e., broadcast, common carrier, etc.) "is not a relevant consideration" in the imposition of programing or public-interest rules, nor is whether satellite radio operates as a broadcast or subscription service. In fact, the FCC put satcasters on notice in 1997 that it "may adopt additional public-interest requirements at a later date."

An unnamed Senate staffer and First Amendment attorney Robert Corn-Revere also say in that story that this won't work because satellite is a paid service you choose to get and because the First Amendment won't allow it. But that won't stop them from trying. Just watch. 3gp converter serrial number

The second story is in today's Wall Street Journal arguing that computers and the internet are the next target of the prudes, prigs, and self-appointed national nannies:

If America gets serious about doing battle over "values," will the Internet-enabled personal computer be able to stay out of the crosshairs?3gp converter serrial number

It's a wonder that no one has yet run for office by campaigning against the computer. After all, you couldn't ask for a better sin-delivery system than a PC with a fast Web connection....3gp converter serrial number

According to their stereotypes, conservatives worry about sex while liberals worry about violence, and the world according to the personal computer provides a lot about which both sides can fret....

If you don't protect Howard Stern's speech from government censorship, yours is not far behind. 3gp converter serrial number

Yo, Canada

: Here's a heretical thought coming out of four nice days in Toronto:3gp converter serrial number

Would our world in America be all that different if we had not revolted against England? 3gp converter serrial number

I don't mean to piss off Canadians with another observation that, gosh, we're so much alike. Of course, there are differences, cultural and philosophical. Robertson Davies used to argue that Canada actually has more in common in its worldview with Scandanavia than with the U.S. and I think he had a point. And I will say that Canadians are lousy at making left turns. 3gp converter serrial number

I also don't mean to piss off Americans by devaluing that which we value so strongly: our Constitution and Bill of Rights (well, except when we find the First Amendment politically inconvenient) and dogged individualism. Nor do I necessarily want to get into an argument about what I still view as the superiority, even with its problems, of the Canadian health-insurance system. 3gp converter serrial number

And perhaps one could argue that we're similar because of the gravitational pull of our oomph and that oomph comes from the independence bred of the revolution. 3gp converter serrial number

But having given all those caveats, it is still true that we and our lives are remarkably similar for having taken such different paths 200 years ago. And our lives are similar to the lives in England and then by extension in Europe and what we haughtily call the "modern" Western world. 3gp converter serrial number

What ties us together, I think, is not history or revolution or philosophy but simply democracy. 3gp converter serrial number

What ties us together is that when you give people the right to determine their own destiny, they will find the water levels of freedom and civilization. 3gp converter serrial number

: I was sitting in the Toronto airport thinking about this as I read a Q&A with Natan Sharansky in the National Post (which, stupidly, won't let us see the story; I wish I could tell you to read the whole thing but I can't) as he flogged his new book, The Case for Democracy: The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny & Terror. Sharansky makes powerful arguments in favor of democracy for all people and against the prejudiced and wrong-headed belief that some people do not want or are not ready for democracy.

Why are you optimistic that people will be achieved in the Middle East?
Because I believe that every society on earth can be free and that if freedom comes to the Middle East, there can be peace. The question is whether the free world will do everything in its power to help this region become democratic.
Amen to that. Ultimately, democracy is what will tie the people of the world together. We may seem to be on radically, dangerously different courses now but in the long run, let people govern themselves, give the people control of their lives, and people will be people. 3gp converter serrial number

: By the way, here's the proof that the U.S. and Canada are alike after all. I pick up Maclean's magazine and what's the cover story but:

The War Between Town and Country. Cottagers vs. farmers. Suburbs vs. small towns. Urban cash vs. rural clout. This is Canada's next culture war.
AKA red provinces vs. blue. 3gp converter serrial number

Media on media

: If you're by a radio now (9:30a ET), I'll be on Air America's Unfiltered on the FCC. 3gp converter serrial number

The national nanny

: In a National Post piece about Michael Powell as the new darling of religious nutjobs, there's this quote I like:

Jerrold Nadler, a Democratic congressman from New York and ranking member of the House constitution subcommittee, says Powell's complaints against ABC and Monday Night Football "make it abundantly clear that he is less interested in doing his job than he is in becoming the country's chief censor."
Good for you, Congressman. And how did you vote on the indecent indecency bill? The right way. Thank you. 3gp converter serrial number

: UPDATE: I didn't make it clear enough that Nadler voted against the indecency indecency bill; I just added that clarification above. Others who had the courage to vote for free speech (even if accused of voting for smut):

Only 22 members, including Paul and Ackerman, had the courage to actually vote "no," with most of them voicing free speech concerns. Another 20 members voted "present" or simply did not vote at all. Among those voting "no" were many of the House's most progressive members, including California Democrats Maxine Waters, Barbara Lee, Zoe Lofgren and Pete Stark, as well as New Yorkers Jerry Nadler and Jose Serrano. Congressional Progressive Caucus co-chair Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, also voted "no," as did Georgia Democrat John Lewis, the veteran civil rights activist. Michigan Democrat John Conyers, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, was among the members who did not vote.
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November 28, 2004

The vast Canadian conspiracy

: I pick up the Globe & Mail on the way back and find that John Roberts, the likely successor to Dan Rather, is Canadian. Peter Jennings and now John Roberts. Hmmmmm. Sounds like a conspiracy to me. Odder still, Roberts' real name is Robertson. But he changed his name to Roberts and then to J.D. Roberts and now he's John Roberts. Hmmmmm. Code names?

Some right-wing pundits in the U.S. have suggested that Canadians have a liberal bias. In the summer of 2003, White House operatives raised questions about the objectivity of Canadian ABC reporter Jeffrey Kofman, after he had filed a number of negative reports about American troop morale in Iraq. Distributing copies of a profile of Kofman that appeared in the American gay and lesbian magazine The Advocate, White House spin had it that Kofman's bias came about because he was both gay and Canadian.3gp converter serrial number

Roberts is decidedly heterosexual, with a wife and two children, a son, 19, and a daughter, 13.

Ah, but he's still Canadian, isn't he? Once a Canadian, always a Canadian. 3gp converter serrial number

Hey, ABC News: Real sucks!

: I just went through consumer hell with Real trying to watch the segment on my FCC scoop on ABC World News Tonight. I tried to subscribe to ABC NewsNow for $40 a year but that didn't work and so I then had to subscribe to ABC SuperDuperPassGas or whatever the hell they call it for another too-many bucks per month. And then I had to download software three times. And then I had to walk through glass to watch two minutes. And then when I tried to cancel it all, I had to stay on hold on not one but two calls to Real for 40 friggin' minutes. Real sucks. Real Audio sucks. Real Video sucks. 3gp converter serrial number

ABC News: Please follow my advice below. You're pissing off your viewers/customers/audience/public and not making much money from Real -- right? -- when, instead, you could use your public to market and distribute your brand and product. Make us your ally, not your enemy, eh?3gp converter serrial number

November 27, 2004

Not dead, just vacationing

: Sorry for the radio silence. I'm still in Toronto. Back home tomorrow. Back blogging then.
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November 26, 2004

abcnews1.jpg

Half of 15 minutes

: The good news: I was on World News Tonight in Jake Tapper's story about the FCC and the jihad against free speech. The bad news: Because of college football, it appeared only on the West Coast. So it wasn't seen where it matters: Washington. And I haven't seen it yet either. Oh, well, those are the breaks. Now I'll start ranting about America's jock jihad. 3gp converter serrial number

The great indecency hoax: We are not a nation of prudes

: In his upcoming Sunday column, Frank Rich makes the argument I've been making for months and I'm damned glad to have company with influence: He says that Americans are not, in fact, storming the FCC demanding a crackdown on indecency; that's all just a hoax perpetrated by a few well-organized religous nutjobs and a few political cynics at the FCC. Rich is also generous enough to point to my little FCC scoop.

Ever since 22 percent of the country's voters said on Nov. 2 that they cared most about "moral values," opportunistic ayatollahs on the right have been working overtime to inflate this nonmandate into a landslide by ginning up cultural controversies that might induce censorship by a compliant F.C.C. and, failing that, self-censorship by TV networks. Seizing on a single overhyped poll result, they exaggerate their clout, hoping to grab power over the culture. 3gp converter serrial number

The mainstream press, itself in love with the "moral values" story line and traumatized by the visual exaggerations of the red-blue map, is too cowed to challenge the likes of the American Family Association. So are politicians of both parties.

But Rich puts forth lots of facts and ratings showing that, in fact, we love Desperate Housewives in blue states and red; we are not prudes; we are being misrepresented by the prim ayatollahs and exploitive bureaucrats and lazy reporters and pundits. He ends here:
Those who cherish the First Amendment can only hope that the Traditional Values Coalition, OneMillionMoms.com, OneMillionDads .com and all the rest send every e-mail they can to the F.C.C. demanding punitive action against the stations that broadcast "Desperate Housewives." A "moral values" crusade that stands between a TV show this popular and its audience will quickly learn the limits of its power in a country where entertainment is god.
I don't always agree with Rich but you know that I love this column. I'm delighted that Frank Rich in The New York Times and Tom Shales in the Washington Post and Jonathan Alter in Newsweek are using their powerful platforms to question, not to just spread, the too-quickly swallowed conventional wisdom that we are a ntion of prudes. We are not. So here's hoping that Rich is right and whether it is putting the chill on Saving Private Ryan and driving Howard Stern to satellite or gasping over a harmless if dumb network promotion or whatever comes next, the nannies will go too far and we will finally stand up as one and tell them to put a sock in it. 3gp converter serrial number

The objective

: Jay Rosen and other bloggers get some major quote love from Mike France in a Business Week column about whether there is a market for nonpartisan news. France hopes there is. 3gp converter serrial number

I talk a lot about the need for a new transparency of perspective and process in the news business -- because I believe it will, in the long run, restore credibility. That doesn't mean that every reporter on every story becomes a partisan. Not every story is red-v-blue; not every story is so simple. But where there is a perspective that's relevant, isn't it better to disclose it than not to?3gp converter serrial number

A thousand points of control

: Go read Business Week's terrific interview with Pierre Omidyar on his unique model for charity. Or maybe it's not unique; it merely takes the model that works in commerce and media and politics and brings it to charity: Give the people control and they will use it. (Where have I heard that before?)

Omidyar is pioneering a third way, a philanthropy that's fanatically bottom-up. It's anti-vision. Anti-dictate. And, in a sense, Omidyar isn't even choosing how his $10 billion is given away -- or to what causes it goes. He wants you to do that.
See also an online Q&A with him here. 3gp converter serrial number

: This is what Jim Hake is trying to do with Spirit of America: Letting the people who know identify needs and letting the people who contribute answer them. 3gp converter serrial number

: Which reminds me: Please join in the Spirit of America Blogger Challenge and give something, anything. You can contribute via my team and the money will go to building and hosting an Arabic-language blogging tool. You'll merely be changing the world. Or you can join my team with your blog or give via someone else's team. Whatever. Just give, please. It's important for Iraq and America and blogs and the world. 3gp converter serrial number

The unholiday

: I went a little farther than over the river and through the woods for Thanksgiving. We came to Toronto, where they're not having Thanksgiving. It's a turkey-free zone. And, no, I'm not defecting. 3gp converter serrial number

November 25, 2004

Turkeys

: Off to see family today. Happy Thanksgiving. 3gp converter serrial number

November 24, 2004

The two posts below go together: The first is about the death of the Dan Rathers of news; the second is what should rise in their place. 3gp converter serrial number

The death of anchors = the end of one-way news (and what to do about it)

: Yes, the exit of Dan Rather, stage left, spotlight off, tail twixt legs, marks the death of the anchor, the extinction of the trusted news star.3gp converter serrial number

But it's more than that. It's the toppling of journalism on a pedestal. It's the end of news as a lecture. It's the death of one-way media. 3gp converter serrial number

That is what anchors embodied. And that is what we, the people formerly known as viewers/listeners/readers in the audience, have rejected. 3gp converter serrial number

We rejected the old system of trust: If we trusted the person, it was thought, then we trusted what he said. Anchors equaled automatic authority. But no more.3gp converter serrial number

Oh, trust is still important. In fact, in this new, distributed world of ours, it is even more important. Trust is our organizing principle. Trust is what makes weblogs, Technorati, eBay, Craigs List, RSS, chat, and email work: We pay attention to those we trust; we filter out the rest. We each decide whom to trust; it's no longer decided for all of us. 3gp converter serrial number

We control trust. And so that is how we operate with news, too: We can get the source material on the web or via CSpan to judge the facts for ourselves; we can follow the track record of reporters and news organizations to see when they mess up and whether we should believe them; we follow the links of those who have not led us astray; we can see who is being transparent and who is not and judge accordingly; we decide what stories are important for us; we get to question those in power thanks to new media. We are in control. 3gp converter serrial number

The idea that we should just sit there and watch as someone reads the news to us is -- now that we see the alternatives -- quaint at best, condescending at worst. Why the hell should we ever have let Dan Rather decide what's important to us and how we should should look at it? How did we ever tolerate listening to the news from him without taking the opportunity to talk back?3gp converter serrial number

And just look at what happened when we did talk back: Dan Rather could not stand the idea that bloggers in PJs could have facts and a voice; he attacked those who only tried to help him get to the truth; he showed that he cared more about his position on the pedestal than about the truth or serving his public. This led to his downfall. Dan Rather wasn't made to listen, only to speak. When he was forced to listen, it destroyed him. 3gp converter serrial number

All this is not to say that reading the news is outmoded, or that video is obsolete. Hardly. They're convenient means of communication. There will always be on-camera anchors and reporters, prettier than your average bear. That's not the old-fashioned part of network news. 3gp converter serrial number

No, instead, it's the top-down, one-way, one-size-fits-all news-extruding machine that's ready for the mothballs. We've seen how this sausage is made and we're not swallowing it anymore. It's the old view of delivering the news that's antiquated. We no longer wait for the news to come to us; now the news waits for us to go get it. We are in control. 3gp converter serrial number

So don't think for a second, CBS News, that finding the right face with the right voice will solve your problems. It only extends them. Same for you, NBC and ABC and, for that matter, cable news. 3gp converter serrial number

No, you have to explode your newsroom, tear apart your shows, rethink news to turn it into a conversation, and hand over control to the people you used to read to if you want to survive in our new world. And it's not hard.
3gp converter serrial number

How to explode TV news in four easy steps
3gp converter serrial number

Try this: 3gp converter serrial number

1. Slice.3gp converter serrial number

Cut up your shows into stories and put them all online. 3gp converter serrial number

After you air a story, it's fishwrap. Nobody can see it. If they missed it, well, that's tough for them. Is that any way to treat your public? Well, you don't have to anymore. 3gp converter serrial number

You should put up every story you do -- and not just as a stream but as files that the people can distribute on their own. 3gp converter serrial number

You can still make money on this -- in fact, you'll make new money: Put ads on the video; track those ads; and tack on a Creative Commons license that says people can distribute the video but cannnot muck with it. And you'll find something magical will happen: Your audience will market your product for you and distribute it for you and it won't cost you anything more. It's free money, damnit. Tell that to your stockholders.3gp converter serrial number

And while you're at it, take your script for the segment and associate it with the video as meta data (that is, post it on a blog with a link to the video) so people can find your stories on search engines and then watch them. 3gp converter serrial number

This means that people who really want to see your stories and are interested in them can now do so. We're no longer captive to your schedule and your selection; we can watch what interests us. We are in control. 3gp converter serrial number

The result: You will get a more interested and involved audience. You will get a bigger audience. You will get more people who will like what you do and start watching your old-fashioned shows. You will benefit. We will benefit. 3gp converter serrial number

If you really care about informing the public -- which, of course, you do -- then this is the first step to doing it a new and better way. 3gp converter serrial number

2. Add.3gp converter serrial number

You have more material for every story you do: I've seen how much goes into a 3-minute piece and how much is left out. 3gp converter serrial number

Now in most cases, I do think that stuff that's cut is extraneous to most people.
You're right to edit and package. Keep it up.3gp converter serrial number

And in the early days of online when news people thought this medium was all about getting more time to tell longer stories with more stuff and another chance to show off cute writing, I screamed in protest: No, your stories are already too long anyway. Find the nearest period!3gp converter serrial number

But for those who are intensely interested in a story or who want to look deeper into what we say, why not put up all the rest of your material? Why throw it away? Put up entire interviews and do it in chunks so people people link directly to one piece or another and, in essence, put up their own remixes. Show the world your great reporting. 3gp converter serrial number

If you're doing your job right, this will help your credibility and reputation, for most people will see that you really did pick the right stuff and did tell the story well. 3gp converter serrial number

More important, you enable people who need more information to get it. And that is our job, isn't it?3gp converter serrial number

3. Link. 3gp converter serrial number

It's as simple as that: Link outside of your own echo chamber of a newsroom. Link to your competitors and show what they did on stories -- stories you did better, stories you didn't do. Do not assume we are your captive. Assume we are smart and want to be informed and want to find the best reports we can. Also assume that we are a thinking public and we want to see and hear different perspectives on a story so we can decide what we think. So help us. We'll appreciate it.3gp converter serrial number

Link to your competitors. It will be good for you. It will make you want to do better jobs on stories than they do. 3gp converter serrial number

4. Listen. 3gp converter serrial number

Listen to the people you used to call your audience but should see as your equals. 3gp converter serrial number

The next time bloggers suggest a fact of your may be wrong, CBS, listen to them. Quote them. Look into what they say. Thank them. Learn your lesson, huh?3gp converter serrial number

And it's not just about fact-checking your ass. It's about knowing that your former viewers have something valuable to say. At first, it's just about quoting their words. 3gp converter serrial number

But you know that it won't be very long before we're all equipped with cameras and we'll all be witnesses to our 15 minutes of news. The wise news organization will create an easy way to collect and remix and redistribute all that. Wouldn't you like to have eyewitness video from the heart of a new story? Recognize that anyone can be a reporter. Anyone who sees and reports news is a reporter. So widen your world. Listen. Quote. Make your public a star alongside your anchors. 3gp converter serrial number


: When you've done all that, you've turned news into a conversation. 3gp converter serrial number

You've turned the spotlight away from the anchor -- the mere personality who got you in trouble -- and you turn it onto the news itself, where it belongs. 3gp converter serrial number

You've engaged the people you used to call your viewers, who used to just sit there but have since started walking away, into the news. 3gp converter serrial number

You've made anchors what they should be: supporting players, second bananas. (And you've saved yourself a helluva lot of money along the way.) 3gp converter serrial number

And you've informed the public. Isn't that what news is about instead of an anchor's fame?
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And now a word from our sponsor

: Tom Watson hates my post last night giving bloggers credit for helping topple Rather. Go read it. 3gp converter serrial number

: UPDATE: There's an odd discussion going on here and at Tom's blog on bourgeois vs. proletarian with folks complaining that I can't be just folk because I've had media jobs. My response to Tom and the commenter here:

First, this was my response to someone who agreed with you in a comment under my link to your post: 3gp converter serrial number

Pardon me, but you sound a bit like the cultural revolution in Mao's time, making the proletariat into the new exclusive class. I'm people, too. I don't declare myself "a-list." You said that. In the blogosophere, in fact, talking about an a-list is old media think, back to the days when only the one or two biggest could afford the printing press or the broadcast tower. That is mass-market-think. And that is over. Now we are all equal, we're all just people. That's the point. Dan Rather is no beter than you or me. He may think he is. By this rationale, you may think he is. But I don't. And I don't think I'm any better -- any more of an a-lister -- than anyone else. So don't put me apart in a room you built for me. 3gp converter serrial number

Second, I had not appeared on TV or been quoted in media in years. Oh, yes, I used to be -- when I had a media perch at TVGuide and People. But that went away. It came back only because I am blogging. I've been on those shows with the likes of the man behind PowerLineBlog and much of the Rather fact-checking, who's not, to the best of my knowledge, a media mogul (he's not even from New York!). Sure, big media is going to be more comfortable at first putting on other media guys but that is expanding and that is a great thing. 3gp converter serrial number

Third, on Rather himself: I was highly critical of Rather long before I became a blogger. I called him the dumbest anchor alive. I regularly complained about his pomposity. So this is not a blogger-come-lately attitude; it is my opinion of Rather and has been for years. I think that Rather has been bad for journalism and bad for TV journalism and he was particularly poisonous when he refused to admit for 12 days that he could have made a mistake. I am glad to see him dethroned for more than the latest Rathergate. I wrote a much longer set of posts today trying to explain that here [scroll up].3gp converter serrial number

Fourth, that is not out of some right-wing conspiracy. I'm a Democrat. Voted for Kerry. Can't stand Rather. That's not incompatible. And it's not the stuff of conspiracy theories. 3gp converter serrial number

Thanks for the nice things you said at the same time. I appreciate that. I like you and your blog, too. And I love having discussions like this. These are not the discussions of bourgeois vs. proletariat it's just a discussion. 3gp converter serrial number

Dan Rather's biggest mistake was dismissing those who would have gotten him closer to the truth just because they weren't elite and weren't fellow professionals. That kept him removed from the facts and removed from his public; it was just plain snobbish. Please don't do the same thing in reverse to me just because I've been lucky to have some good jobs. I'm still just another person in a conversation with you and that is the real future of media....3gp converter serrial number

And, by the way, Tom, your resume looks an awful lot like mine. So what we have here is a media pro complaining about a media pro complaining about a media pro. Do I hear an echo in here? Do I hear an echo in here? Let's get past judging people by what they are or were and instead judge what they say and how they say it. Isn't that what this medium is all about? I am proud of my resume as you should be proud of yours. But I'd rather you argue with my arguments than with my CV.

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The next FCC FOIA

: I just filed the next FCC Freedom of Information Act request. I had suggested that a reporter should do this; when I talked with Howard Stern, he said I should do it. 3gp converter serrial number

The question: What evidence does the FCC have that any Viacom executive knew that Janet Jackson would bare her breast and thus should be fined $550,000 for the crime? Jackson said no one knew. Timberlake said no one knew. But in its complaint against CBS et al, the only thing the FCC says was a violation of the law was 19/32 of a second -- let's repeat that: 19/32 of a second -- during which Jackson's titanium-tipped tit was exposed to the air and airwaves. Says the commission:

Based upon the preceding analysis, we find, in context, that the exposure of Ms. Jackson’s breast was apparently indecent, and, therefore, is legally actionable.
They may whine about other things being "crude" or "inappropriate" but those are critical, not legal judgments. The only illegal thing, they say, was the exposed breast. 3gp converter serrial number

They don't fine Jackson or Timberlake, as the law allows (and, if you buy the argument that the FCC is only doing its duty, which Michael Powell regularly makes, then you'd have to argue that they must fine the performers.... but they don't). They fine CBS/MTV/Viacom because the FCC holds them responsible. 3gp converter serrial number

But on what basis? That is the essence of my FOIA request. 3gp converter serrial number

The FCC almost acknowledges that it has no evidence of the crime:

In sum, even assuming that neither CBS nor MTV had advance knowledge that Ms. Jackson’s breast would be exposed during her broadcast performance, the record clearly establishes that officials of CBS and MTV did have prior knowledge of, indeed were intricately involved in the planning process for, and tacitly approved, the sexually provocative nature of the Jackson/Timberlake segment. Moreover, they extensively promoted this aspect of the broadcast in a manner designed to pander, titillate and shock. Viacom made a calculated and deliberate decision to air the Jackson/Timberlake segment containing material that would shock Super Bowl viewers, and to accurately promote it as such.
Ah, but it's not illegal -- yet -- to be provocative or shocking. The only allegedly illegal act here was the baring of the breast. But the FCC does not link CBS directly to that act. 3gp converter serrial number

So I want to see the evidence they have. My FOIA request:

In regard to FCC 04-209 (Super Bowl/Viacom/Janet Jackson), I request any documents from the Commission investigation -- including but not limited to notes, interviews, quotes, research, memoes, and analyses, external or internal to the FCC -- that contend or support the contention that Viacom and any of its subsidiaries -- including but not limited to CBS and MTV -- or executives were in any way aware before the fact that Janet Jackson's breast would be exposed on the Super Bowl telecast.
My guess is that this well is come up dry. They don't have any evidence. And if that's the case, the FCC would be going after Viacom only for vindictiveness -- and to impose a chill -- not because they did anything illegal. 3gp converter serrial number

It's bad enough that the law is unconstitutional. It's worse that the enforcement of it is unconstitutional, too. Since when can government fine us for not breaking the law. 3gp converter serrial number

The FCC has to respond within 20 days. I'll keep you informed. 3gp converter serrial number

: Remember that you, too, can file FOIA requests. Here's where you file them with the FCC. 3gp converter serrial number

: By the way, the previous FOIA scoop got mentions in Newsweek via Jonathan Alter and the Plain Dealer via Tom Feran plus Daily Variety 3gp converter serrial number

The Viacom settlement

: The Viacom settlement with the FCC didn't make clear what it covered -- other than that it erased everything except the ongoing battle over Janet Jackson and the death of civilization. The Wall Street Journal reports:

The company agreed to a record $3.5 million settlement to expunge all but one pending indecency complaint.3gp converter serrial number

The payment will cover five outstanding fines totaling $440,500 involving radio programs. It also will settle numerous other incidents under investigation by the Federal Communications Commission that could have led to millions of dollars in additional penalties. Among them was an expected fine of nearly $1.5 million related to shock jock Howard Stern's raunchy on-air antics, as well as complaints involving television shows on CBS and UPN including "Cold Case," "CSI" and the Victoria's Secret annual fashion show, say people familiar with the situation.3gp converter serrial number

Still, Viacom executives were quick to note that the company plans to continue to fight a proposed $550,000 fine by the FCC related to its airing of the Super Bowl half-time show in February.

I'm disappointed that all this will not be going to court. But that is the FCC's strategy of blackmail. Part of the settlement says that the FCC can't use any this in license renewals or applications. 3gp converter serrial number

Somebody needs to have the balls to fight the FCC in court and take it to the Supreme Court. Howard Stern complains that he never got his day in court because of FCC blackmail. He still won't. 3gp converter serrial number

Glamourblog

: Who says bloggers are all hairy pastey white guys? Here's a glamorous Paris model who's moblogging. Alas, not in her PJs. [via Loic]3gp converter serrial number

FCC follies

: The FCC have been quite the busy little beavers. 3gp converter serrial number

: Live is dead. As a result of a $3.5 million consent decree agreement with Viacom to settle all its indecency complaints -- except for Janet Jackson -- the company will now put delay equipment on all its TV and radio shows. 3gp converter serrial number

More fun: The company must provide indecency training for all on-air personnel within 30 days. That means they're going to give Howard Stern potty training. I wonder whether they will have to give Dan Rather potty training, too. 3gp converter serrial number

If the FCC finds against an a Viacom station in the future, the company must suspend all employees involved pending an investigation. So, folks, when the FCC decides to bring its latest fine against Stern next month, he would be suspended. Say hello to satellite. 3gp converter serrial number

The pig spit commissioners Michael Copps and Kevin Martin don't think it goes far enough. If any bloggers ever see either of these guys in a porn store, please take a picture of them and forward it, please. 3gp converter serrial number

: The FCC oh so generously decided not to fine three shows that had received complaints. Compare these, if you will, to other shows that have gotten complaints recently. Farts and whipped cream got complaints. These did not:3gp converter serrial number

: Keen Eddie did not get fined for having a whore sexually excite a horse. 3gp converter serrial number

Commissioners Kathleen Abernathy and Jonathan Adelstein concur but with skewed logic. The entire rationale behind the FCC's authority is to protect children from nastiness, yet they say: "... whether a program is suitable for our children is not the standard that as Commissioners of this agency we must apply...."3gp converter serrial number

Getaloada this high-horse moment: ":We are, however, compelled by the Constitution not to overreach our limited authority in this area and impose our taste and personal judgments on the rest of America. If we overstep our authority, we run the risk of having our limited authority curtailed forever." As well you should, you fools. What are you doing but imposing your taste and personal judgments on the rest of America? What are you doing but that? You damned well should have your authority curtailed forever. 3gp converter serrial number

The horrid Kevin Martin dissents with this gem: "Yet, the majority concludes that the program, in which a prostitute is hired to sexually arouse a horse by removing her blouse and to 'extract' semen from the horse, is not indecent because the prostitute is 'never seen actually touching' the horse. Despite my colleagues’ assurance that there appeared to be a safe distance between the prostitute and the horse, I remain uncomfortable." 3gp converter serrial number

We're all uncomfortable when you talk about semen, Kev. 3gp converter serrial number

: The commissioners don't fine the canceled Coupling -- though they are "troubled."

The episodes in question do not explicitly depict sexual activities or organs (other than kissing). Rather, the characters’ conversations together with the set-up of the scenes make clear that sexual activity has occurred. Further, despite repeated references to sexual activities and organs, which we find troubling, none of the episodes contains graphic descriptions of sexual activities and organs or uses language that is so graphic as to qualify as indecent or profane.
They sound so damned disappointed.3gp converter serrial number

: They are similarly disappointed when they reject another Parents Television Council (read: Prudes Television Council) complaint against Off Centre for talk about a stuffed toilet. 3gp converter serrial number

I hear they're going to go after This Old House, though.3gp converter serrial number

Ah, but Kev Martin finds that the FCC's action is inconsistent. Sounds like ground for appeal to me:

The Order similarly acknowledges that another show contains “sustained and repeated references” to sexual organs, and that “the cumulative effect of such repeated references appears to pander to a vulgar interest.” Yet, the Order concludes neither show is indecent. This decision appears to be inconsistent with our precedent. In the past, if similar references, in similar contexts, have been made on radio shows, the Commission has fined the radio station.
Mikey Copps similarly says that they would find against radio and are inconsistent. 3gp converter serrial number

: And then they turn around and fine a radio station. 3gp converter serrial number

November 23, 2004

Rather's apologist

: Michael Wolff just said on MSNBC that Dan Rather will be remembered as a "seminal figure" in the history of network news and not for this story that he blew. 3gp converter serrial number

He's alone in that. Everywhere I've turned on the dial tonight, the accepted view is that Rather is going because he blew it. 3gp converter serrial number

Bye, bye, Dan

: Dan Rather is stepping down from his pedestal in March. Yes, bloggers deserve some credit....3gp converter serrial number

The dinosaur of news just keeled over. This marks the end not of any golden age but of pompous, stand-apart news. They don't know it yet, but it does. 3gp converter serrial number

(I was blogging this from a TV news greenroom, where I was doing something unrelated. That, by the way, was how this entry and the one below got messed up; my Treo ate them. Anyway, there was much buzz among the TV news folks, but little surprise.)3gp converter serrial number

Howard Kurtz appeared on CNN and said that Rather left now -- before the release of the Rathergate report -- so he could leave on his own terms. That is to say, the report is not going to be a valentine. 3gp converter serrial number

I wish CBS would have the balls to try something new, to break out of the pack, to blow up the obvious, to reinvent what TV news should be. They won't, of course. But we can try to tell them how they should do it. What would you do with CBS news if you had to fill that chair? Leave comments. 3gp converter serrial number

: Here's RatherBiased.com's statement.

Frankly, it's a shame that it has to end this way for Dan. In the end, he became the person he most despised, Richard Nixon. Had Rather and the CBS management been more serious about viewer input and fairness, they would never have had to stonewall about a story they shouldn't have run.
And Powerlineblog's here. 3gp converter serrial number

What should happen but won't I

: They should recognize what's happening in news and hire Jon Stewart or David Letterman or anyone with attitude -- not haughty Rather attitude, but the attitude of the audience, the voice and scowl of the people, the honest voice of the comedian who pokes holes in pomposity rather than pumping it up. It should happen but won't. 3gp converter serrial number

: Jay Rosen on Rather's farewell. 3gp converter serrial number

The Vanity Fair party

: I've been remiss not linking to Vanity Fair's new site.3gp converter serrial number

I took some crap here because Vanity Fair was not online; it wasn't my fault, really, but because I get to hang out in the Conde cafeteria, I had to accept some level of blame. So I'm glad to see that they are finally up and the site is very nicely done. James Wolcott beat them to the punch with his blog. But now the magazine has content from print as well as a banquet of links, including many to bloggers. 3gp converter serrial number

The Independent in London writes a happy review of the site, glad to finally be able to read some of VF over there.

There's a party going on in cyberspace. It's a classy affair, with A-list celebrities, wise, old coves, rapier wits and blindingly bright members of the intelligentsia. It should be a damned good party, because it's been a long time coming. Several years after most magazines dipped their toe in the water by launching online editions, one of Condé Nast's flagship titles has just entered the fray with vanityfair.com....3gp converter serrial number

Aside from the cocktails and celebrity element, there's an earnest desire to stimulate intelligent conversation, just like at a high-society party.

Congrats to my colleagues. 3gp converter serrial number

Goober of the year

: Renée Graham of the Boston Globe nominates Michael Powell to be Time's man of the year sinc he has done so much -- of damage -- in 2004.

From driving Howard Stern to announce a 2006 move to satellite radio to making ABC affiliates so skittish about airing a film with graphic violence and profanity that more than a third canceled a Veterans Day airing of ''Saving Private Ryan," no individual this year has had a greater effect on our cultural lives -- for good or ill, for better or worse -- than Powell....3gp converter serrial number

In Iowa and Nebraska, instead of Spielberg's World War II epic, several ABC affiliates showed the TV movie ''Return to Mayberry." Somehow, the selection of that film hardly seems a coincidence. It could certainly serve as a sad commentary on the archaic mind-set the FCC's restrictive rules is promoting, with Powell as an overbearing Barney Fife with too much power and too little desire to use it beyond fostering his own myopic cultural and political agenda.

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All New York's a stage

: Yesterday, I'm walking through Times Square by the office and I see some folks staring up Broadway at a flatbed truck surrounded by a few cops and camera trucks. The truck passes. Oh, Bono is playing. Shrug. Another day in the center of the universe. 3gp converter serrial number

macys.jpg: The other day, I'm walking through Rockefeller Center and I see a squad of burly guys in hard hats trying to look still-macho as they climb up the Christmas tree with bundles of lights. It's beginning to look a lot....3gp converter serrial number

: This morning, I'm walking to work from the PATH by Macy's and I see that they're ready for the Thanksgiving Day parade. The street is painted with the logo and here's the majorette's-eye view of the cameras. 3gp converter serrial number

All New York's a stage and all its people merely extras. 3gp converter serrial number

Vlogging

: Audioblog.com has a very neat video blogging tool and Eric Rice is having fun with it. 3gp converter serrial number

November 22, 2004

From the front

: Kevin Sites finally gets to tell his story of the tape of a shooting.

So here, ultimately, is how it all plays out: when the Iraqi man in the mosque posed a threat, he was your enemy; when he was subdued he was your responsibility; when he was killed in front of my eyes and my camera -- the story of his death became my responsibility.3gp converter serrial number

The burdens of war, as you so well know, are unforgiving for all of us.

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Are they celebrating in Holland?

: This is Islam Awareness Week.3gp converter serrial number

Oh, I think we're plenty aware already. 3gp converter serrial number

Blog ethics

: My sneaky friend Nick Denton nominated me to join Jason Calicanis in setting up a Blog Ethics Committee. I had to let this sink in. Here's my response:3gp converter serrial number

We don't need a committee. We don't need an authority figure or moral guidepost. 3gp converter serrial number

This is a distributed world, a world owned by the whole. We are ruled by the wisdom of the crowd. 3gp converter serrial number

The most I might go for would be a blog ethics wiki, in which all bloggers get the chance to contribute their collective wisdom and conscience to a debate over what's right. 3gp converter serrial number

Besides, the rules of ethics in publishing are really quite simple. As they relate to advertising, I'd start here:3gp converter serrial number

1. No one can buy your editorial voice or space. 3gp converter serrial number

2. Anything that is bought should be clearly identified so the audience would not be confused about its source. 3gp converter serrial number

3. Be transparent about any relationships you have that could affect what you say and about anything you receive related to what you say. 3gp converter serrial number

4. Be open. Be honest. 3gp converter serrial number

That pretty much covers the waterfront. If you get more specific than that, your knickers get knotted over every new kind of ad or freebie. It's really quite simple; it's common sense. Your credibility is your only asset; if you sell or or screw it up, you don't get it back. 3gp converter serrial number

On other fronts:3gp converter serrial number

We can debate until the elephants and donkeys come home about disclosing your own political prespective and bias. That's up to you. '3gp converter serrial number

You need to follow the law -- whether you like the law or not -- regarding copyright and trademark and if you don't, that's your risk. 3gp converter serrial number

You can set your own rules about answering and quoting email and tolerating commenters, anonymous or otherwise. 3gp converter serrial number

There, I just saved myself a committee meeting. 3gp converter serrial number

Supporting Spirit of America and Arabic blogging: Money meets the mouth

soalogo.gif: Spirit of America -- the great charity that lets Americans help Iraqis, people to people -- is about to come out with something I think can change the world: Arabic-language blog tools. 3gp converter serrial number

At the same time, SoA has issued a challenge to bloggers to raise money. Roger L. Simon jumped the gun and got there early. So I'm determined to catch up. 3gp converter serrial number

Here is what you can do:3gp converter serrial number

1. Contribute to the Buzzmachine team. I've decided to put the money behind the Arabic blogging tool because I think it's a worthy project and I pushed for it to be done. I seeded it with the first $500.3gp converter serrial number

2. Join the Buzzmachine team. Just sign up your blog to add into the pool. 3gp converter serrial number

3. Start your own fund or team by clicking here. 3gp converter serrial number

It's always important to emphasize that Spirit of America isn't about left or right, anti- or pro-war. It's about people. It's about Americans helping Iraqis realize the dreams of any people for freedom and democracy and free speech.3gp converter serrial number

This is a new breed of charity that identifies need on the ground and that lets you decide where to put your donations. SoA is also helping Iraqi bloggers start the Friends of Democracy. It is funding TV stations in Iraq. It is sending over tools and sewing machines. It is doing great work. And I can tell you how much I trust and respect the people behind this charity because I've gotten to know them -- Jim Hake, Kerry Dupont, and others -- and their good work. 3gp converter serrial number

: Now let me talk for a minute about the Arabic blogging tool. 3gp converter serrial number

Not long after I first discovered Hoder and the Iranian weblog revolution, I wished for blogging in Iraq and Zeyad emailed me and then started HealingIraq. He introduced blogging to others, and that led to IraqTheModel, among others. They have made a difference, helping us all see Iraq from the perspective of citizens and building bridges with us. But they blog in English.3gp converter serrial number

To bring the full power of citizens' media to a people, it has to be available in their native language. Zeyad recently emailed me again and said he's getting ready to blog in Arabic. That will be even more important. The folks at SixApart have generously volunteered to help him with a bilingual blog. I just got email saying that Blogger is going to help him figure it out. The new Spirit of America tool is being built by iUpload (full disclosure: we're working with them at Advance Internet). The more the merrier. 3gp converter serrial number

Hoder helped people in Iran blog in Persian by giving them instruction in using the English-language Blogger. How much better it will be when he and Zeyad and the IraqTheModel brothers can spread the power of this new people's medium in their native languages. 3gp converter serrial number

I firmly believe that once people start publishing and communicating in not just Iraq but Saudi Arabia and Jordan and the rest of the Arab world, we will finally hear the voices of real people and discover that we share many interests and needs. Bridges will be built. Power will be challenged. Old ways will meet new. Understanding will grow. When citizens can speak, good things happen. 3gp converter serrial number

It's not just about Arabic blogs in Iraq, of course. It's about the world. Spirit of America is starting with Arabic and plans to move to Persian. And Blogger has announced that it will be available in new languages: French, German, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, traditional Chinese, simplified Chinese, Brazilian Portuguese, and Korean. That, too, will be helpful. 3gp converter serrial number

And then we will look to bilingual bloggers to translate the best of citizens' media from around the world. 3gp converter serrial number

See Biz Stone's blogging tours of the world (part I and II). Blogging is worldwide. And that is a good thing. 3gp converter serrial number

The chill on free speech, continued

: Here is yet another chill on free speech caused by the FCC's and Congress' efforts to control and censor our speech:3gp converter serrial number

A radio personality I won't name told me that the company for which he/she works is trying to require him/her to indemnify them against any FCC fines -- including not only fines against the performer but against the company. 3gp converter serrial number

This means that under the current bills festering in Congress, this poor schmo would be liable for between $1 million (that is, $500k fines for the performer and the company) to $6 million (that is, $3 million each) per day. 3gp converter serrial number

I would (a) recite nursery rhymes, (b) go to satellite and hope these prigs, prudes, and fools did not follow, or (c) find a new career in aluminum siding. 3gp converter serrial number

On the air
: I'll be on Brian Leherer's show on WNYC today to talk about the FCC and free speech. 3gp converter serrial number

November 21, 2004

Good news

: Who can say this is not good news?

Iraq will hold its first democratic elections for more than 50 years on January 30, it was announced yesterday.
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America, the brand

: I just saw the most remarkable piece of product placement/advertising/political positioning. On American Dreams, teen soldier JJ returns home with just a damaged leg and psyche and his hard-ass father gives him a car: a Mustang.3gp converter serrial number

Cut to the commercial, the only one in the hour: A modern-day soldier returns home, presumably from Iraq. The story is stretched out as his kid brother drives him and his mom home (in a Ford) and the soldier has to wait for his father, who has some issues. Finally, the father returns, driving his own Mustang, the same vintage as the one we just saw in the '60s American Dreams. The father talks about his return; if he's not JJ, he's an '00 proxy. And this father gives his son a car. You guessed it: a Mustang. "We at Ford wish everyone in the Armed Forces a safe return home," the chyron says. "For your service, you have our gratitude." 3gp converter serrial number

I have no idea whether this is brilliant advertising or brilliant exploitation. 3gp converter serrial number

(But as we know, Ford/Lincoln/Mercury is a red-state brand.)3gp converter serrial number

A blogging demo

: There's someone here taking pictures of a blogger blogging. It's every bit as exciting as you'd imagine. A geek typing. I've had that happen a few times when people want to do stories on blogging and want to make it visual: "Go ahead, blog," they say, as, oh, I don't know, we're going to take off our clothes and end up in our PJs cackling madly. Blogging is just not visual. Whittling is more exciting. 3gp converter serrial number

Distributed reporting

: Finally catching up with email and read a neat notion from Jay Rosen. He noted that Josh Marshall was getting his readers to call their representatives to see whether they had voted for the DeLay Rule since (a) the votes weren't recorded and (b) the reps would be more likely to level with voters than with reporters. "Great example of blogging doing journalism one better," says Jay. Right. It's distributed reporting: The people do the digging. 3gp converter serrial number

I can imagine a score of stories where this would work: You ask your readers to call their congressmen to find out a stance and put together a chart (a wiki would work better for this than blog comments, by the way). You have your fellow bloggers each tell you whether the newspapers and TV and radio stations in their town covered a story you think is important and even have them all call the papers' editors to ask why not. I think a lot of our open-space tax dollars are wasted on space nobody'd want anyway, so I could ask people to take pictures of stupid open space purchases near them. But it's not restricted to bloggers alone: A smart reporter could start a blog and ask readers what's happening in the communities they cover. 3gp converter serrial number

Whither weblogs?

: The Philadelphia Inquirer asked me to write an op-ed on the future of weblogs after the election -- yes, there is one. Here it is. 3gp converter serrial number

November 20, 2004

The names

: Yad Vashem has put the names of more than 3 million victims of the Holocaust online. [via TimesOnline]3gp converter serrial number

On second thought, take that shrimp off the barbie

: Shocking news: Australians are fatter than Americans. That's doubly shocking because they have better beaches. 3gp converter serrial number

Criticizing the FCC

: Now here's the third post quoting critics going after the FCC -- at long f'ing last. The latest is James Wolcott (and quoting Jim always causes such... ahem... interesting comments):

In my book, I called for the toppling of Michael Powell at the FCC, whose arrogant, anti-democratic meddling becomes more autocratic with each inflation of his neck size.3gp converter serrial number

I was thinking too small, which is unusual for me.3gp converter serrial number

Jeff Jarvis has a bigger, better idea: abolish the FCC. Get rid of the whole busybody, bureaucratic shebang.3gp converter serrial number

This is a call which can unite liberals, conservatives, and true libertarians--in short, all those who believe the First Amendment and free speech aren't outmoded ideals that can be breeched whenever some bully behind a desk chooses to exercise his prerogatives and grab face-time on the news. Michael Powell has become a glutton for attention and it's time to starve him and the rest of the white-collar censors.

Amen, brother it criticism. Let's say it again: This is a call that [sorry... once a copy editor, always a copy editor] can unite liberals, conservatives, and true libertarians.3gp converter serrial number

Chop suey commentary

: Frank Rich writes Chinese menu columns: He slaps together one thought from column A and one thought from column B that don't belong together. And, yes, an hour later, your brain feels empty. 3gp converter serrial number

In his column tomorrow, he starts bemoaning the FCC's censorship and the chill that brought 66 stations to preempt Saving Private Ryan.

Merely the threat that the F.C.C. might punish a TV station or a network is all that's needed to push them onto the slippery slope of self-censorship before anyone in Washington even bothers to act. This is McCarthyism, "moral values" style.
But then, because the F words came in a movie about war, he tries -- pulling from column B -- to make this an issue not of government censorship but of the prowar Republicans. Get it? A movie about war was censored while we're at war and so this must be a Bush coverup. 3gp converter serrial number

Can you say non sequitur? 3gp converter serrial number

Media on media

: I'm going to be on Brian Lehrer's WNYC show (which I always enjoy) on Monday at 10:40 to talk about the FCC and all that. The show's blog post on the story here. 3gp converter serrial number

: My interview with Bob Garfield on On the Media is up now here. They do a good job of editing down a longer chat into its key bits. Transcript up soon.3gp converter serrial number

: Here's audio of my appearance on David Lawrence's show. He's a good guy who's also fighting this good fight.3gp converter serrial number

: I'm supposed to have a perspective piece in the Philadelphia Inquirer tomorrow on the future of blogs, post-election. I'll link to it when it's up. 3gp converter serrial number

The national nanny

: Tom Shales gives our national nanny, Michael Powell, a well-deserved critical lashing in tomorrow's Washington Post. Tidbits:

Oops. They got rid of the wrong Powell. The father unfortunately is going, but the son, even more unfortunately, remains behind.....3gp converter serrial number

Staying in office, however, and capable of wreaking havoc in American broadcasting until 2007, is Colin's son Michael Powell, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission and definitely not a force for good in America. 3gp converter serrial number

Pompous and imperious, an ideologue who believes unfailingly in his own philosophy of how TV and radio should work (the FCC also has domain over telephone and emerging broadband technologies), Powell ignores or condemns anyone who opposes him. Though FCC chairmen have labored mostly in obscurity, Powell has managed to make himself famous; he's the Torquemada of the insane campaign now being waged against "obscenity" on the airwaves....3gp converter serrial number

In fairness to Powell, the commission's two Democratic members, Michael J. Copps and Jonathan S. Adelstein, have been among those pushing for not only fines but license revocations when stations violate the still-vague obscenity rules. They are idiots....3gp converter serrial number

We stand at the top of a dangerously slippery slope. When you start leveling fines for uttering certain words, the list of the verboten is bound to grow. We could be facing four years of even more paranoia than usual about Big Brother, much of it justified....3gp converter serrial number

Powell belongs at the bottom of the barrel [of FCC chairmen] with the lowliest of the bunch. He is an agenda masquerading as a man, the proverbial pompous ass and, worse, a genuine threat to freedom of speech.

Shales also passes on our little FCC scoop (and says something nice about a former TV critic). 3gp converter serrial number

Old news is no news

: Has anyone else noticed that the headlines on GoogleNews are getting very stale? It's not as if the editor got tired; it's a computer. I used to be able to check in to find the latest. Now I find one- and even two-day-old headlines. 3gp converter serrial number

Democracy within

: I quite liked this description of democracy (lower case) in Jeremy McCarter's review of the play Democracy (upper case) in the New York Sun.

The new play shows how democracy-the system of reconciling irreconcilable goals-operates in Germany, and in Germans. We are each of us a democracy, the play argues, a mass of conflicting perspectives, divided loyalties, contradictory motivations. Brandt himself is charismatic but brooding, moody, and various. "So many people, with so many different views, and so many different voices," he muses. "And inside each of us, so many more people still, all struggling to be heard."
That's how I felt before the election: red voter on one shoulder, blue voter on the other, confused voter in the middle. 3gp converter serrial number
November 19, 2004

How do we fight the FCC

: I'm on David Lawrence's show right now talking about how we can all fight the FCC. I want to hear your ideas. How do we all tell the FCC to butt out of our culture and get away from our First Amendment? 3gp converter serrial number

I'll file friend-of-the-court brief with any network willing to fight them. I'll send them call-your-bluff complaints. I'll file FOIA requests to expose their uninvestigations. I've sent letters to my legislators telling them not to vote for the indecent indecency bill when it comes back (in January). What else?
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Media on media

: I'm supposed to be on David Lawrence's show tonight at 7 PT, 10 ET. 3gp converter serrial number

Why conservatives should kill the FCC and defend free speech

: The other night on Aaron Brown's show, I argued with the Heritage Foundation's Rebecca Hagelin over the FCC and the First Amendment (I attacked the first and defended the second, which only logically follows these days but she argued for more government regulation of speech from the agency). Today, someone sent me a wonderful post from the Heritage Foundation's very own weblog agreeing with me. In other circumstances, that last sentence might scare me. But today it only makes me gloat. 3gp converter serrial number

First, it points to a great post by James Gattuso, which says:

But the real question is who should decide this question: five members of the FCC, or 300 million Americans with their remote controls? There’s something frankly unsettling about federal officials opining on whether they like this or that thing shown to Americans. (And, although Powell was careful to say he didn’t know whether FCC rules were violated, the chill in the air was nevertheless apparent.)3gp converter serrial number

Advocates of regulation, of course, argue that only “inappropriate” content is at risk. “We just have to draw the line somewhere” is the refrain. Yet, that line is a fuzzy one — and tends inevitably to move in the direction of more and more government control. If there’s any doubt of that, just ask station managers who refused to air Private Ryan last week, out of fear of FCC disfavor. And it unlikely to end there.3gp converter serrial number

No one should know this more than conservatives — who have spent years fighting politically-correct speech codes on college campuses and elsewhere. In the end, giving government power to define what is appropriate and acceptable may be as — or more — obnoxious to conservatives as to liberals.

Amen to that. Are you listening, Rebecca? 3gp converter serrial number

After pointing to more from another Heritager, the blog concludes wisely:

Bottom line: Defining indecency is awfully difficult, and different people will draw the line on it in very different places. Given the diverging views of the 5-member FCC, laying down a clear, bright-line definition of indecency is probably impossible. Vague standards and vigorous enforcement--what we have now--will necessarily spur broadcasters to act overcautiously and pull the plug on worthwhile programming like "Private Ryan." For conservatives concerned about trash TV, the off-button may be a more attactive alternative.
True conservatives should be the ones calling for Michael Powell's head -- and dismantling the entire damned FCC.3gp converter serrial number

Insult our culture, you insult us....

: Last week, a review of a children's movie in The Times was filled with bizarre poltical and anatomical references. 3gp converter serrial number

This week, we have A.O. Scott looking for profound meaning in SpongeBob SquarePants (but, thankfully, not finding any):

The loud, silly innocence of Mr. Hillenburg's imaginary world, where double entendres seem to bubble up and dissipate faster than you can catch them, is a welcome antidote to the self-seriousness and brutality that rule so much of the popular culture.
I am fed up with these overarching generalizations about popular culture. The other night on Aaron Brown's show, the lady from the Heritage Foundation and Aaron himself went on about the coarseness of our -- our culture ... that is to say, us. Now we have this critic, who ought to know better, making another ovarching generalization about self-seriousness and brutality. 3gp converter serrial number

Well, there are brutal movies and there are children's movies.3gp converter serrial number

Folks: It's not one culture. That is the lesson of the internet. That is the obvious lesson of the nichefication of media and entertainment: We get choice, we use it. See Jarvis' First Law of Media. So you can't generalize about all of our culture. And when you do, you generalize about all of us. And that's intellectually lazy and dishonest.
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You are what you buy

: Ken Mehlman, Bush campaign manager, reveals the bottom-line marketing strategy that led him to victory. It's the exact same strategy that sells cars: market segmentation.3gp converter serrial number

No, we are not a red v. blue nation. We are Volvo v. Lincoln nation.

"If you drive a Volvo and you do yoga, you are pretty much a Democrat," Mr. Mehlman told an assembly of the nation's Republican governors here. "If you drive a Lincoln or a BMW and you own a gun, you're voting for George Bush." ...3gp converter serrial number

"We did what Visa did," Mr. Mehlman said. "We acquired a lot of consumer data. What magazine do you subscribe to? Do you own a gun? How often do the folks go to church? Where do you send your kids to school? Are you married?3gp converter serrial number

"Based on that, we were able to develop an exact kind of consumer model that corporate America does every day to predict how people vote - not based on where they live but how they live," he said. "That was critically important to our success."3gp converter serrial number

He said that is what led him to the conclusion that supporters of Mr. Kerry had a preference for Volvos over Lincolns, and yoga over guns.3gp converter serrial number

In addition, Mr. Mehlman said the Bush campaign had moved beyond simply placing advertisements on traditional television and radio networks. For example, he said, Mr. Bush began placing advertisements on in-house networks at private gyms, guaranteeing a captive audience of what he described as receptive voters.3gp converter serrial number

"Because our demographic studies and analysis showed us that a lot of young families get information not at the 7 o'clock news but at the 7 o'clock workout before they got home," he said.

Politics is just a product, in this view. 3gp converter serrial number

Now this is press transparency

: The Times (of NY) rounds up all the sex scandals at The Spectator in London:

"Someone should bottle that magazine's tap water," wrote The Guardian in an editorial this week, referring to the three erotic scandals that have enveloped The Spectator in recent months, involving, among others, its editor, associate editor, publisher, former receptionist, one of its columnists and the home secretary.
I keep saying we need to humanize journalism here. So that's what we need: Some good, juicy, public affairs!3gp converter serrial number

: Update: The editor in question, also an MP, has a blog (thanks to the commenter) 3gp converter serrial number

Stern on Letterman

: Howard Stern mentions my little scoop on the FCC on Letterman's show tonight: "An ex-TV Guide writer went and researched. Three people complained. Three people."3gp converter serrial number

Damn. Wish I'd recorded that. 3gp converter serrial number

: It's a serious talk and a good talk. Howard discusses the problem of the FCC and free speech and Clear Channel and creativity. Random quotes:3gp converter serrial number

"This is my way of checkmating the United States government," he says.3gp converter serrial number

"This guy Michael Powell... he's telling us what we can hear," he says. Later: "How can we have a democracy how can we have an open exchange of ideas?"3gp converter serrial number

"My fellow broadcasters are not standing up for me."3gp converter serrial number

"In five years, satellite radio will be dominant in radio broadcasting."3gp converter serrial number

On getting satellite radio: "I believe it is a political movement."3gp converter serrial number

Dave: "In many ways, you pioneered terrestrial radio."
Howard: "And now I'm here to destroy it."3gp converter serrial number

On making fun of racists: "I think the show actually has a high moral value." Dave asks: "Is there a segment of the audience that may not get it... that may have its prehistoric beliefs reinforced?"3gp converter serrial number

Dave: "How come President Bush won the election?"
Howard: "Had I been on in more markets in the country, I believe we would have had an effect on the election."3gp converter serrial number

"I can't syndicate my show anymore. Radio stations are deathly afraid of the religious right... and Michael Powell..."3gp converter serrial number

"Bababooey is coming. Everybody is coming over to the new place."
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Siriusly

: I have another theory about Mel Karmazin's arrival at Sirius: I think he'll try to engineer a merger with an earthbound radio company -- possibly even Infinity (since Viacom is making noise about falling out of love with radio and, as Fred says, Mel's still in love with it). 3gp converter serrial number

: Sirius also managed to buy a spot on David Letterman tonight, as Stern appears ther.e 3gp converter serrial number

The danger of the FCC, a continuing saga

: Reason has an illuminating (which is to say alarming) interview with FCC Chair Michael Powell in its December issue. It's not yet online, so I'll do some typing.... 3gp converter serrial number

: What enrages me most is Powell's justification for his upsurge of censorship and fines against broadcasters. What's changed in the last six years? Reason asks. Well, nothing, Powell says, as he explains that they don't investigate indecency independently but only respond to complaints, and then he adds:

What has happened in the period you've identified is indecency complaints have skyrocketed.
Hold on one minute. Skyrocketed? I will, of course, refer you to my little scoop that revealed only three people bothered to write letters to the FCC to cause its largest fine in history (and only 20 more Xeroxed them). That is not skyrocketing. That is not a flood of complaint. That is a few letters from a few crackpots. And on that basis, Michael Powell abandons his once-strong defense of the First Amendment for the sake of cynical politics. 3gp converter serrial number

: What frightens me most is that Powell acknowledges it makes no sense to regulate broadcast specially in a time when only 11 percent of Americans get their TV over rabbit ears -- yet he won't say whether that means he wants to try to extend regulation (read: censorship) to cable... and the internet. 3gp converter serrial number

The editors of Reason read a quote to Powell: "Rather than continuing to engage in willful denial of reality, the time has come to move forward toward a single standard of First Amendment analysis that recognizes the reality of the media marketplace and respects the intelligence of American consumers."3gp converter serrial number

Surprise, surprise: It's a speech of Powell's from 1998. Now he says: "To suggest that we bend the First Amendment for one industry singularly is to do hazard to our most cherished principle." And so, which way does this go: No censorship of broadcast? Clearly, that's not what Powell's saying. So then does censorship extend to cable... and satellite... and the internet? He's not saying. 3gp converter serrial number

Later, he repeats the nonstatement: "...Do I think that the First Amendment should be less protective of broadcasting than it should be of cable? I don't particularly." I take that as a veiled threat. This, too:

Powell: I think it will be increasingly difficult to argue for content-premised legislation for broadcasters only.3gp converter serrial number

Reason: Does that mean Congress is going to extend content regulation further into cable or other traditionally nonregulated areas, or does it mean they give up trying to regulate broadcasting?3gp converter serrial number

Powell: Well, what Congress choses to do is anyone's guess. But I would say this: There's an enormous sledgehammer on the other side: the First Amendment and the way courts view it.

Many in Congress are, indeed, trying to extend regulation to cable... and then who knows what comes next. 3gp converter serrial number

These people have to be stopped.3gp converter serrial number

: He issues another vague threat, saying that indecency and profanity are "in the criminal code, which means John Ashcroft could theoretically go try to slap handcuffs on you. No nobody expects that, but there's nothing about that statute that says otherwise." 3gp converter serrial number

So Powell says he's only enforcing the law and has no choice but to levy all these fines. Then he turns around and says the attorney general has the choice not to enforce the law. He doesn't even try to be consistent and logical on the issue. 3gp converter serrial number

: Reason asks whether the FCC should be shut down. He doesn't answer that question, either. 3gp converter serrial number

: Separately, Susan Crawford responds to my post suggesting that we get a conference together to envision killing the FCC. She says it more positively and intelligently but the moral to the story is the same: We should imagine what would be possible if the FCC were not there making things impossible. 3gp converter serrial number

Right v. wrong

: Just for the record, I'm still contemplating this and this and will likely recast Denton's sneaky challenge. Later.3gp converter serrial number

November 18, 2004

More Stern

: Mel Karmazin is the new CEO of Sirius, landing there with main man Howard. 3gp converter serrial number

: Fred Wilson's take here. Mine later. 3gp converter serrial number

Howard in orbit

: Curbed has coverage of Howard Stern handing out Sirius radios in Union Square today. I happened by afterwards. There's little sadder in the world than the leftovers of a Stern crowd. 3gp converter serrial number

It's (not) beginning to sound a lot like Christmas

: Our South Orange blogger at NJ.com writes about the school's decision to ban music that could be considered religious in any form. My church's choir director (who suffers my bad bass) used to be the choir director there and the truth is that thanks to decisions like this all across America, churches are getting the use of music that schools can't ever think of singing again. 3gp converter serrial number

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

: So I'm thinking about buying a big, honking flat-screen TV so I can corrupt my morals yet more. Was debating between LCD and Plasma. David Pogue in The Times says go for the LCD. What do you say?3gp converter serrial number

So sorry

: We're in a sorry state of forever saying we're sorry. And I'm sick of it. 3gp converter serrial number

Alessandra Stanley in the NY Times today is sick of the sorrys on TV: sorry for the Desperate Housewives promo, sorry for cutting off CSI, sorry for Janet Jackson, sorry for bad words in Saving Private Ryan. Enough. 3gp converter serrial number

Mark Cuban says saying sorry should be the new business model: TV is making money out of apologizing... and getting tons of attention for it. 3gp converter serrial number

What we should be doing is turning to the people who expect us to say sorry -- the prigs and prudes and religious nutjobs and Michael Powell -- and say: Sorry for what? Huh? I'm sorry you don't like what I like; I'm sorry I'm not sorry; but I'm not. 3gp converter serrial number

Is anybody a journalist?

: In a word: yes. Anybody can witness and report and now publish news.3gp converter serrial number

LawDork responds to this question on last nights' West Wing (which, unfortunately, I couldn't see). See this post on the show and then this post that uses my little FCC FOIA expose to prove the point. See also this quote on the topic from Glenn Reynolds yesterday. 3gp converter serrial number

And see today's NY Times on Kevin Sites in Iraq -- keeping silent on the video he shot of a soldier shooting an Iraqi -- that ends with this:

His Web site describes Mr. Sites as a "pioneering, multimedia journalist" who has worked in Afghanistan, Latin America and Eastern Europe as well as the Middle East....3gp converter serrial number

Mr. Sites has worked for several networks and has a master's degree in journalism from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University, according to the site.

Thus The Times blesses his credentials. But he'd be a journalist without them. He's the guy who shot the video that is news.3gp converter serrial number

cnntwoshot.jpg

Off the air

: On Aaron Brown's show tonight, they had to pair me up with somebody from the Heritage Foundation who -- oddly for a conservative! -- wants more government regulation, interference, and bureacracy ... when it comes to regulating her definition of morality, that is. She wants more FCC regulation. I say the FCC has no business regulating our speech; it's just plain unconstitutional.3gp converter serrial number

Aaron did a good job balancing, but I also told him that it was a bogus assumption, which he read earlier in the segment, to say that America was "outraged" at the Desperate Housewives promo. That's what they said when Married by America got fined $1.2 million based on the work of three prigs who wrote letters and 20 who Xeroxed them. Outraged? No. It's time that we challenge these assumptions, made and spread in media. To say that and to show the Housewives promo 25 times tonight is sensationalism, I said. 3gp converter serrial number

Aaron tried to agree with the woman that the culture is too coarse. To his surprise, I said, no, it's our culture and we all have values and we all have taste and I won't insult the American public by generalizing that we're all coarse. 3gp converter serrial number

Two soundbites:3gp converter serrial number

: I go to church every Sunday and I listen to Howard Stern every day and that is not incompatible.3gp converter serrial number

: When the lady went on about what offends her, I said that the homophobia on the 700 Club offends me, but I don't suggest it should be taken off the air or fined by the government. I change the channel. Pick up the remote, I said. 3gp converter serrial number

When I got out, I had email on my Treo from some church lady named Sherry using her work email at Lilly.com (tsk, tsk) with this charming bit of evangelism:

You have no morals and I feel you are pathetic.
Mighty Christian of you, Sherry. And here's another one:
I submit to you that you lack moral values and you church attendance proves nothing.
Mighty grammatical of you, Josh.3gp converter serrial number

But I also got some nice emails from Canadians. And Jeremy Brown did me the favor of capturing the picture above. Caption away. But be nice....3gp converter serrial number

: UPDATE: Glenn Reynolds says:

I saw the commercial for the first time in that broadcast, and I have to say that it was an absolute disgrace, and that it should not have been allowed to air. It didn't show nearly enough of Nicolette Sheridan to justify all the hoopla, and that's a tragedy because, despite her perhaps overdone plastic surgery, she's still hot.
He says much more. As he would tell you, go read the whole thing. 3gp converter serrial number
November 17, 2004

Or just "I"

: Cory Bergman in Lost Remote says:

CBS Chairman Les Moonves at the B&C Hall of Fame party in NY:
"I remember when the magazine was called Broadcasting. Then it was Broadcasting & Cable. Now it's just B&C. I just hope 10 years from now, it's not called C."

Or C&I, as in Cable & Internet. (Quote from this week's B&C magazine).

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Waiting

: I'm waiting to go on Aaron Brown's show and I'm killing time in the very cool Samsung showroom in the new Time Warner center, blogging, getting gadget envy.... Saw Kinsey, most appropriate for the discussion tonight.... See you on the other side....3gp converter serrial number

TV of the people, by the people, for the people

: Glenn Reynolds takes off on the explosion of TV to say something more fundamental about news:

Journalism isn't a profession, but an activity. And it's an activity that technology is putting within the reach of many more Americans. That's bad news if you're Dan Rather, but it's good news for the rest of us.
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Butt out, Michael Powell!

: Arrrrggghhh. 3gp converter serrial number

Michael Powell, chief censor, opens his yap about the lame Desperate Housewives promo on Monday Night Football that -- mind you -- showed nothing more risque than a woman's back. He said:

"First of all, as a legal matter, whether it's a problem is yet to be determined. We only respond to complaints and evaluate them fairly and make a decision," Powell said in an interview with CNBC.3gp converter serrial number

"But I think it's very disappointing. I wonder if Walt Disney would be proud," Powell added.

Nowhere in the Constitution or in the charter of the FCC does it say there should be a role for a Chief Federal Entertainment Critic. Who gives a damn if you think it's disappointing? Who gives a damn what you think a corpse would think about this? 3gp converter serrial number

This reveals exactly what is wrong here: Powell thinks he has a role in dictating what content -- that is, speech -- should be allowed in this country.3gp converter serrial number

Reread the Constitution, will you, Michael? It's none of your damned business. 3gp converter serrial number

Citizens take over the FCC: A conference (or at least a lunch)

: Here's a conference I'd love to attend: 3gp converter serrial number

Citizens take over the FCC. All the constituencies who have problems with the FCC controlling what it shouldn't control come together for a day and leave with a manifesto for change in the agency that oversees, regulates, and holds back the asset that belongs to all of us: spectrum. 3gp converter serrial number

Susan Crawford, David Isenberg, Om Malik, Kevin Werbach -- and who else -- know all about the technical and regulatory sides. 3gp converter serrial number

I'd take on censorship and free speech. 3gp converter serrial number

Susan Crawford put together a great conference on the FCC in New York a few weeks ago. It was way over my head, I'll confess. It didn't deal with the free speech issues. And its aim was different; it created dialogue with the FCC and that's a good thing. David Isenberg has had some great gatherings that I unfortunately missed; they were, as I remember, more about freeing the network. Kevin Werbach has run big conferences in Supernova that explore various issues. So maybe I'm just late to the party. 3gp converter serrial number

But I see something that is, I think, simpler and, as a result, more radical: 3gp converter serrial number

Let's look at what would happen if we abolished the FCC. What regulation, if anything, would we need instead? How are the FCC and Congress hurting development? We, the people, tell the FCC -- and Congress -- that spectrum is ours and we want to see it developed freely. We take control. We reset the starting point for the discussion. 3gp converter serrial number

: Well, fancy that: Just as I finished writing this post, I saw that Steve Verdon at Outside the Beltway also calls for abolishing the FCC (though he concentrates on free speech, not on the spectrum, network, and technology issues) . It's a friggin groundswell. It's a movement. 3gp converter serrial number

Indecent indecency on hold

: The indecent indecency bill won't hit the floor again until January. 3gp converter serrial number

Media on media on media

: I'm supposed to be on Aaron Brown's show on CNN to talk about the backlash to the backlash to Nipplegate. 3gp converter serrial number

: I was on Kevin & Bean's show on KROQ this morning. The producer gingerly tried to suggest I shouldn't talk about Howard Stern before the interview. I said I would not agree to that and if you get me, you get Howard. It's not just loyalty to Stern; Stern is at the heart of this free speech story and I always make the point that we must defend Stern to defend the First Amendment (and not wait until the prigs and prudes and bureaucrats go after "Saving Private Ryan"). To their credit, they went ahead. And it was a good discussion. These guys have been on this issue, too. See this page on their site telling you how to make your reasonable voice heard. 3gp converter serrial number

: Also was on Paul Harris' show on KMOX yesterday and I really like this guy. He's a blogger and a broadcaster. He put up audio snippets here. 3gp converter serrial number

: And I'm supposed to be on the next On The Media. 3gp converter serrial number

: Sick of me yet? 3gp converter serrial number

Don't answer that. 3gp converter serrial number

Free

: I had stopped reading the Times of London once they started charging. But Andrew Sullivan says that -- thanks in part to his lobbying -- they've taken off the tollbooth and we can once again read one of the world's fine newspapers for free. Thank you, Times. 3gp converter serrial number

Rules, rules, rules

: Steve Rubel points us to a bit of silly PR spinning by the consumer electronics industry, trying to get ahead of whining about cameraphones by putting out a list of rules for camera phone use. As far as I know, nobody asked them. And it's not exactly as if they're enforceable: Break this rule and a flack will bug you.

4. Camera phones should not be used to take photos of individuals without their knowledge and consent.
Well, no, not in a public place. If you see, for example, a cop doing something wrong or a public employee lollygagging, you don't need to go up and ask their permission before taking their picture and distributing it -- anymore than a news photographer would. 3gp converter serrial number

The Daily Stern

: On Thursday at noon, Howard Stern is going to show up at Union Square to hand out something free for Thanksgiving. I'm assuming it's Sirius radios.3gp converter serrial number

: And then he goes to tape Letterman to talk about his future in space. On tomorrow night. 3gp converter serrial number

Americans like sex

: This is getting ridiculous. No, it got ridiculous months ago. Now it's getting stupid. The latest in the prudes' war in America: A supposed flood of complaints to ABC for a joke that showed absolutely nothing naughty before a football game: a star of Desperate Housewives drops her towel and hugs a football player. Flood? I wouldn't believe it. Look at my reporting on the supposed flood that came in complaining about Married by America: a flood of three. But still, the Today show this morning talks about the flood and tsk-tsks when they should be saying: What the F? What's so wrong with that? As Joe Territo says: "Can't we have a little sex with our violence?"3gp converter serrial number

I'm going to start a site that allows all us sane, normal, red-blooded Americans send thank-you notes to the networks -- and the FCC -- every time there's a hint of sex or colorful language on broadcast. 3gp converter serrial number

Thank you, ABC, for showing a little naked back. We like pretty women. We like sex. We're male. We're American. 3gp converter serrial number

Thank you, Pitt player, for getting so excited you couldn't help yourself and you said the F word. It's nice to see someone excited about something these days. Some for you, Bono.3gp converter serrial number

Thank you, Steven Spielberg, for making soldiers human and letting them speak like real Americans. We need more honesty.3gp converter serrial number

And as for your prudes who are making it your lifes' work complaining and getting stupid ass media to talk about it: Get a life. 3gp converter serrial number

: If anybody can find a Torrent of the ABC promo, please put a link in the comments. It couldn't be tamer. 3gp converter serrial number

IT'S A JOKE, FOLKS!3gp converter serrial number

We're at risk of outlawing a sense of humor in this country just to satisfy a tiny band of prudes, prigs, and religious nutjobs. 3gp converter serrial number

: Tom Biro found the end of it here. Tom just sent me a better link here. Watch and judge for yourself.3gp converter serrial number

November 16, 2004

The war between cultures

: I keep coming back to the thought that the war between cultures -- between Islam and the West -- will come first to Europe instead of America. See the fight over Muslim women's head scarves in France. See the murder of Theo Van Gogh after he made a film about the oppression of Muslim women in Europe. And see this week's Spiegel cover: "Allah's daughters without rights." The experience of Muslims in Europe is different and in greater contrast than here and that will cause greater conflict. 3gp converter serrial number

Protect the First Amendment

: Write your senators and congressmen and urge them to find sanity at the last minute and block the indecent indecency bill. The religious nutjobs want it passed. That should be good enough reason for you to stop them. 3gp converter serrial number

The prices of free speech

: The irony is painful: Theo Van Gogh is murdered because of his speech. Now the Dutch government is looking to shut down radical websites. Free speech begets murder begets controlled speech. What's wrong with this picture? 3gp converter serrial number

Media on media

: In about 10 minutes (at 3:05 Central time), I should be on KMOX in St. Louis with blogger/broadcaster Paul Harris. Just did an interview with Bob Garfield for On the Media on WNYC this weekend. And I'm supposed to be on KROQ in LA at 7:30 Pacific time Wednesday... on on the FCC. 3gp converter serrial number

: And the New York Post picked up the story today. 3gp converter serrial number

Blog Times

: Glenn Reynolds suggests that The New York Times replace retiring William Safire with a rotating stable of bloggers (no horseshit jokes, please). I agree: Let the citizens be heard. And I'll throw my saddle into the ring. 3gp converter serrial number

The Daily Stern

: I just called into the Stern show and told Howard about my little investigation of the FCC and its $1.2 million fine against Fox below (and talked too fast and plugged the blog twice). 3gp converter serrial number

Howard said the one thing he really wanted to get out of Michael Powell when he called him on Ronn Owens' show was whether they really investigated Viacom and found a conspiracy with Janet Jackson to bare her boob, leading to their $500k fine. I said that I'd blogged that reporters should look into that. And then I said I'd make that my next FOIA request to the FCC, demanding to see any notes relating to Viacom's direct responsibility for Jackson's titanian tit. He told me to call back when I got it. 3gp converter serrial number

For any Stern fans coming here, I'm one, too (to the consternation of some folks around here -- f' 'em). Here are some of the posts I've written about free speech and Stern and here's a cover story I wrote in The Nation about it all. 3gp converter serrial number

November 15, 2004

A BUZZMACHINE EXCLUSIVE!
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The shocking truth about the FCC: Censorship by the tyranny of the few

: With not much original reporting, I discovered that the latest big fine by the FCC against a TV network -- a record $1.2 million against Fox for its "sexually suggestive" Married by America -- was brought about by a mere three people who actually composed letters of complaint. Yes, just three people. 3gp converter serrial number

I filed a Freedom of Information Act request on Oct. 12 asking to see all of the 159 complaints the FCC cited in its complaint against Fox. 3gp converter serrial number

I just received the FCC's reply with a copy of all the complaints -- and a letter explaining that, well, there weren't 159 after all. William H. Davenport, chief of the FCC's Investigations and Hearings Divison, admits in his letter that because the complaints were sent to multiple individuals at the FCC, it turns out there actually were only 90 complaints. It gets better: The FCC confesses that they come from only 23 individuals. 3gp converter serrial number

It is shocking enough that what tens of millions of us are permitted to see by our government can be determined by 159 ... or 90 ... or 23. 3gp converter serrial number

But it gets even better: I examined the complaints and found that all but two of them were virtually identical. In other words, one person took the time to write a letter and 20 other people then photocopied or merely emailed it to the FCC many times. They all came from an automated complaint factory like the one I write about here. Only two letters were not the form letter.3gp converter serrial number

So in the end, that means that a grand total of three citizens bothered to take the time to sit down and actually write a letter of complaint to the FCC. Millions of people watched the show. Three wrote letters of complaint. 3gp converter serrial number

And on the basis of that, the FCC decided to bring down the heavy hammer of government censorship and fine Fox an incredible $1.2 million for suggesting -- not depicting but merely suggesting -- sex on a show that had already been canceled because the marketplace didn't like it anyway. 3gp converter serrial number

This is the respect the FCC gives to the American people and our First Amendment. 3gp converter serrial number

fccletter1.jpg
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It is Constitutionally abhorrent that only three people can cause the government to abuse the First Amendment and attempt to censor and chill speech. 3gp converter serrial number

And the chill is real. Because of the FCC's rulings and fines against Viacom for Janet Jackson... and Howard Stern... and Fox in this complaint... and Bono for his F word, 66 ABC stations refused to air "Saving Private Ryan." The FCC's rules are vague and its enforcement irresponsibly inconsistent and so the stations said they could not take the chance. 3gp converter serrial number

The FCC should be ashamed of itself. Congress should be ashamed of itself. Newspapers, TV stations, academics, and bloggers should be screaming at both over this violation of our most fundamental American right. Oh yes, a few newspaper editorialists belatedly bemoaned the freeze on our free speech, below, but only when the FCC had an impact on Saving Private Ryan, not Howard Stern or Bono. This isn't about any one of them. It's about the First Amendment. It's about all of us. 3gp converter serrial number

Who is going to decide what we say and hear in America? The five of the FCC? The three of this religous coup? Or all of us?3gp converter serrial number


And...

: Note well that this is how the supposed army of "moral values" crusaders is inflated by media and government. Reading stories about the FCC's actions, you'd think that millions are outraged by what's on TV. 3gp converter serrial number

No, millions watch TV. Only three are outraged. 3gp converter serrial number

This is America's "moral values" army: three strong. 3gp converter serrial number

It's like a scene out of an old French Foreign Legion movie in which the tiny band of soldiers put helmets on sticks over the wall of the fort to make the stupid enemy think that they are facing not a handful but hundreds. Well, the FCC is that stupid enemy -- and so are we. We swallow the notion that the "moral values" army huge and is winning elections and ruling America and demanding radical change in our own culture. Wake up: It's three people with empty helmets sticking up over the wall thanks to email and Xerox.3gp converter serrial number

: Note, too, that this is the most radical product of our culture of complaint, our society of offense, in which a few who don't like something think they can -- well, can -- affect everyone else. The PC left does it; when was the last time you said "girl"? The religious right does it; they want to stop us from watching our TV shows and listening to our radio shows. Well, it's time we fight back. 3gp converter serrial number

: As I note in this post, reporters should also investigate the FCC's complaint against Viacom over Janet Jackson, in which the FCC says it found a conspiracy. What is their evidence? Inquiring minds want to know. 3gp converter serrial number

Reporters also should make FOIA requests for all the complaints against Stern and Bono and Jackson and see exactly how many citizens actually bothered to write letters and how many merely hit the "print" or "send" button. 3gp converter serrial number


You, too, can do this
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: You, too, can report on government through Freedom of Information Act requests. It is incredibly easy. And it is your right. 3gp converter serrial number

All I did was go to this FOIA page on the FCC's site and fill out a basic form. And look what came back to me: A story reporters didn't bother getting when they wrote about this FCC action. 3gp converter serrial number

fccletter4.jpg
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If an agency has to copy more than a certain number of pages (100 in this case) or spend more than a certain number of hours on a request (two here), they will charge you. But you have the opportunity to say how much you're willing to pay when you file the request.3gp converter serrial number

You can go to any government agency and to local government as well and file such requests. You want to know about your mayor's expense account? You want to see how other agencies use your tax dollars? File an FOIA request. 3gp converter serrial number

The Freedom of Information Act isn't meant for reporters. It's meant for citizens ... and now citizen journalists. So use it. 3gp converter serrial number

Argue with me IV

: Another set of Qs and As from the Corante interview. Please comment/argue there.

EM: Voice and transparency: you've cited these two characteristics as among the most important drivers in the media world of the future - can you expand on that, tying them together?3gp converter serrial number

JJ: The organizing principle of the internet and weblogs -- as well as of media and marketing -- is trust. Trust is about a relationship. And relationships are human.3gp converter serrial number

The problem with big media -- not to mention politics, government, and marketing -- is that they became institutions; they lost sight of their humanity as they tried to raise themselves up on pedestals away from the people. They could not admit to making mistakes. They could not enter into conversations.3gp converter serrial number

Weblogs have shown a new way because they are distinctly human; they have a human voice; they are transparent. And they demand equivalent transparency of media: We want them to unhide their agendas and show their prejudices and process. Many in media resist. When this was the topic at a recent Aspen Institute gataway, some august media people in the room said, Judge us by our product, not our process. I disagreed.3gp converter serrial number

But look at the success of FoxNews on one side of the political ledger and the international spread of The Guardian on the other. Look at the explosion of blogs: The "audience" wants perspective and viewpoint, voice and transparency.

Comment here
EM: What sort of adjustments do you expect legacy big media brands to make with regard to voice and transparency? What happens if they make no adjustments?3gp converter serrial number

JJ: As a reporter, I was trained not to reveal my opinions. It was hard to become a columnist and become human. It was just as hard to become a blogger and become transparent. But I reveal my political opinions on my blog because I believe I owe my readers that much transparency, so they can judge the rest of what I say.3gp converter serrial number

I believe established media must learn to do the same. But it will be difficult -- often impossible -- for big media organizations and for individual journalists to do that. It's a violation of almost a century's news culture. 3gp converter serrial number

Those who do adjust and learn to reveal their perspectives while also maintaining standards of professionalism will succeed (I hope). Those who hold to old rules and expectations will look more and more anachronistic and silly -- and just plain dull. CNN is to FoxNews -- that is to say, smaller -- as big media is to citizens' media and the many new competitors to come.

Comment here.3gp converter serrial number
November 14, 2004

Argue with me III

: Another in the continuing series of Qs and As from the Corante interview, which I'm excerpting here because (a) I blathered on at far too great a length over there and (b) we want to see some discussion started over there (if, indeed, there's something worthy of discussion here). So at the end of each Q/A, I'll give you a link to the comment space at Corante:

EM: Who will make money in the media world of the future? How will they do it?3gp converter serrial number

JJ: Ah, the $64K question. Bloggers are making money at this and they will make more. PaidContent and other trade bloggers are making a living; Gawker Media and other blog companies are turning profits; BlogAds is enabling individuals to make even six figures. And Google AdSense not only paid my 12-year-old son [an amount I'm now told I shouldn't reveal under Google's rules but it's a heckuva lot more than his allowance!] last week for his blog but did something even more important: It cleansed the cooties off of citizens' media. Still, AdSense and its equivalents are the lowest rung of the value chain; they are about nothing but the coincidence of a word on a page. This new medium is all about relationships and we need a new ad infrastructure to measure influence and not just impressions and to serve and audit marketing served via networks of citizens across text, audio, and video. Build it and dollars will come -- at high rates, for advertisers will eagerly buy the opportunity to speak to and through influencers. 3gp converter serrial number

The lower cost of production in citizens' media also will create opportunities as big media companies wake up to the realization that there are ways to make media at much lower costs. And they will desperately need to lower their costs as declining audiences put a stop to ever-increasing upfront ad rates. 3gp converter serrial number

One caution: Online is a scarcity killer. When media isn't fed through hoses, time isn't limited and that means time isn't money anymore. And with no end of content producers, the value of content and even talent as a scarce resource will decline. I depressed the hell out of an old-time columnist when he told me he wanted to use blogs to find a new home for his column. Bzzzzzt, I said; it's not a column now, it's a conversation. He said he needed a paycheck. Bzzzzzt, I said; there are bloggers making a few hundred or perhaps thousand bucks a month doing this. The poor, old dinosaur wheezed: You mean, I've spent my life building a reputation and brand and I'm competing with people making $2k a month? It's worse than that, I replied: You're competing with people who are doing this for free just because they love it. 3gp converter serrial number

Which leads me to Jarvis' Second Law of Media: Lower cost of production and distribution in media inevitably leads to nichefication. The corollary: Lower the cost of media enough, and there will be an unlimited supply of people making it.

Comment here.
EM: Do you think the future for independent media producers is bright? Financially rewarding?3gp converter serrial number

JJ: So bright they'll have to wear shades. Yes, the cost of producing content will decline. But the opportunities will explode. Used to be, you had to know or sleep with somebody on Sixth Avenue or in L.A. to get your shot at getting into print or onto TV. Now all you need is a high-speed modem. 3gp converter serrial number

Text media is exploding first. But the fuse was just lit under audio programming with the advent of podcasting (that is, producing content anyone can hear whenever or wherever they want, whether that's recorded on a hard drive today or downloaded from ubiquitous broadband in the future). And next, TV will explode. 3gp converter serrial number

Today, it costs hundreds of thousands of dollars to produce a half-hour of, say, a home rehab show. With a decent camera and the tools on a Mac plus some time and talent, you could produce an equivalent show for a few thousand at most. That creates tremendous opportunities. Producers can make shows and distribute them online and eventually, they will be discovered by the big boys, who will be desperate to reduce their costs. But in the meantime, great new sources of programming will explode.

Comment here.
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An exciting career in porn

: PaidContent lists all the hot jobs.3gp converter serrial number

F***ing Private Ryan II

: Newspapers are editorializing over some stations' decision not to air "Saving Private Ryan" for fear of being fined by the ever-more-obscenely-unconstitutional FCC.... coming too damned late to the party to protect our First Amendment. (See my complaint to the FCC below.) 3gp converter serrial number

The Chicago Tribune gets it right:

Much has been made of the foul-mouthed Howard Stern's coming move to satellite radio to escape the Federal Communications Commission's increasingly Draconian interpretation of its indecency rules. And of the FCC's overkill in fining CBS Television parent Viacom Inc. $550,000 for the infamous Janet Jackson Super Bowl halftime show. And of its loopy finding that rock star Bono's use of an expletive on a televised awards show was indecent and profane.3gp converter serrial number

Some have argued that such behavior deserves to be singled out for punishment. But the reality is that in setting its sights on curbing a few fleeting and isolated instances of excess, the FCC's crackdown is chilling all broadcasters. It's threatening to scrub powerful programming from the air in favor of pablum that takes no chances in offending anyone.3gp converter serrial number

And viewers will lose the most....3gp converter serrial number

With the prospect of FCC fines hanging over their heads--and Congress still deciding about whether to dramatically increase those fines--some broadcasters are playing it safe. They're guessing what the FCC may do. They're running scared.3gp converter serrial number

There's only one word for this: censorship. And it needs to stop.3gp converter serrial number

The FCC--and Congress--have to back off.

Amen and well said, Tribune. 3gp converter serrial number

The New York Times gets it way wrong, blaming the stations when they should be blaming the f***ing FCC:

But the pre-emptive timidity of a score of them was a sorry spectacle last Thursday when they decided not to show "Saving Private Ryan" on Veterans Day because they were afraid of the Federal Communications Commission.
You fools, you: The fault lies strictly with the FCC, which made it clear that "fuck" is illegal on TV, even though it refused to advise these stations that in this case it would not be -- in other words, it refused to make its rules clear. The stations are actually brave, in my view, calling the FCC's bluff, showing its regulation for what it is: senseless censorship. Shame on you, Times, for not understanding that. You whine about the chill on Judith Miller brought by a subpoena involving knowledge of an illegal act, but you do not see the chill that the FCC and government regulation bring to all media and all speech. For shame, Times.3gp converter serrial number

The LA Times gets it mostly right:

Sure, the movie is violent and reveals that soldiers are known to use unpleasant language while under fire. But at a time when thousands of Americans are engaged in another conflict, reminding their compatriots back home that war is hell is not such a bad thing.3gp converter serrial number

Moreover, the prudish desire to keep any profanity off the air, regardless of its context, is misguided.... The ABC affiliates that refrained from airing the movie could have shown more valor, but they are as much a victim of the FCC's arbitrary and capricious regulation as they are villains in this tale. Their fear of the jihad is understandable, and their surrender Thursday serves to highlight just how destructive the FCC's crackdown on indecency has become.3gp converter serrial number

The commission has been targeting the broadcast industry for the last year or so, prodded on by such Taliban-like zealots as the American Family Assn. and the Parents TV Council (which did issue a ruling exempting "Private Ryan" from its campaigns) and their allies in Congress....3gp converter serrial number

Rather unhelpfully, the commission has pledged to judge the airing of supposed profanity on a case-by-case basis. This, coupled with the FCC's refusal to provide advance guarantees to affiliates that it wouldn't take action if they aired "Saving Private Ryan," makes it look as if the commission's main priority is to tailor its response to whatever level of pressure it feels from self-appointed morality guardians. This is not only cowardly on the part of FCC Chairman Michael Powell and his fellow commissioners, it's probably unconstitutional.

But in the end, all these editorial pages are chicken-stupid. You waited to defend the First Amendment and your and our free speech... you waited until they went after Steven Spielberg and Private Ryan. You should have protested when they went after Howard Stern and Janet Jackson and Bono, you fools. But you waited. For shame. 3gp converter serrial number

Where the real fight for free speech is being fought

: The Dutch are struggling with painful ironies: They treasured free speech so much they tolerated the intolerance of Muslim fanatics; now Theo Van Gogh is dead because of nothing more than what he said; and now war is breaking out between the Dutch and fanatic Muslims with bombs launched against both sides. 3gp converter serrial number

Oh, and there's another level of irony here: It appeared that the battleground between fanatic Muslims and modernity would be on American soil while Europe looked on. Now I'm coming to believe this war will be fought on European soil, where Europeans and Muslims are living in close and uncomfortable proximity. 3gp converter serrial number

In Sunday's New York Times, Bruce Bawer reports from Amsterdam, where he once lived:

During my time there, I quickly came to see that the city (and, I later recognized, Western Europe generally) was a house divided against itself. 3gp converter serrial number

The division was stark: The Dutch had the world's most tolerant, open-minded society, with full sexual equality and same-sex marriage, as well as liberal policies on soft drugs and prostitution; but a large segment of the fast-growing Muslim population kept that society at arm's length, despising its freedoms. 3gp converter serrial number

Instead of addressing this issue, Dutch officials (like their counterparts across the continent) churned out rhetoric about multicultural diversity and mutual respect. By tolerating Muslim intolerance of Western society, was the Netherlands setting itself on a path toward cataclysmic social confrontation?...3gp converter serrial number

In the 1930's, Europe faced a struggle and, many thought, a need to choose between two competing totalitarianisms. Many analysts are wondering if this is Europe's future, as well. They also wonder whether the Dutch people's anger will blow over or whether they will act decisively to protect their democracy from the undemocratic enemy within.

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The other price of 'objectivity'

: I've ranted regularly on the need for transparency in news media, for revealing our perspective and process so our publics can judge what we say in context. Not to do so is to lie by omission, to sacrifice credibility even as we try to protect it. 3gp converter serrial number

Dan Okrent explores another price of 'objectivity' in his Sunday column: By trying so hard to act objective and relying on -- that is, hiding behind -- "experts," reporters often don't take the opportunity to simply tell us what they know.

And reporters think that getting an "expert" to comment adds the aura of objectivity.3gp converter serrial number

In recent years, though, the concept of objectivity has taken a bit of a beating. Some journalists (and critics of journalists) argue that it is in fact unachievable; we all bring our experiences, sensibilities and innate prejudices to the door, and even the act of attempting to leave them on the stoop will alter our approach....3gp converter serrial number

But haven't we reached the point where denying the reader what a writer knows to be true is far more unfair than including it? I was delighted when, in "After 6 Months, Tyco Prosecutors Close Case Against Ex-Officials" (March 18), Alex Berenson described the prosecutor's case as "bewildering," "tedious" and having "rarely been presented in a straightforward way" - a vision of the trial that would have been utterly unavailable had Berenson not dared to offer conclusive characterizations based on his own observations. On a much larger scale, I was dismayed when a reporter for The Wall Street Journal in a letter to friends (later passed around the Internet) described the horrors of life in Baghdad, and was criticized in some quarters for thereby jeopardizing her impartiality. But what she described was based on indisputable first-hand experience. If there was a journalistic offense here, it was that readers of The Journal had been denied knowledge of what this reporter knew to be true. Whom did that serve?

Right. When you remind yourself that a journalist is human, not an institution, and that news is a conversation, not a sermon, then it's a lot easier to and more sensible to just tell the story instead of hiding behind convenient experts and an aura, a conceit of 'objectivity.'3gp converter serrial number
November 13, 2004

So who's your pick for vice president?

: Cheney's in the hospital. Not to walk over him while still warm, but what if he's not veep anymore? What if he can't be inaugurated in January? What does the Constitution say about that?

Amendment XXV Section 2. Whenever there is a vacancy in the office of the Vice President, the President shall nominate a Vice President who shall take office upon confirmation by a majority vote of both Houses of Congress.
It says "whenever."3gp converter serrial number

So who's your pick to be his replacement? I'd pick Rudy Guliani for most anything these days; he's not exactly a Bushie but then, he'd stand a damned good chance of winning next time and with four years near the White House under his belt, he'd beat Hillary handily. 3gp converter serrial number

The third axis of media: Medium, message ... and messenger

: At a meeting in Washington about making media more positive -- at which I felt quite out of place, but that's another story -- someone started in on the standard analysis of media -- medium v. message -- and that's when it occurred to me:3gp converter serrial number

There is now a third axis of media: The messenger matters. 3gp converter serrial number

At the Online New Association in Hollywood, AP head Tom Curley made the old analysis with different terms: content v. container:

First, content will be more important than its container in this next phase...3gp converter serrial number

You cannot control the "containers" anymore. You have to let the content flow where the users want it to go, and attach your brand -- and maybe advertising and e-commerce -- to those free-flowing "atoms."

But this, too, leaves out that third axis (though he starts to address it later). To keep alive this festival of alliteration, I'll say that in his analysis, the third axis of media beyond content and container is conversation. 3gp converter serrial number

This truly is new to media. 3gp converter serrial number

Media wasn't distributed before the internet. Now it is. Enter new messengers: citizens. 3gp converter serrial number

Media wasn't two-way before the internet. Now it is. Enter new modes: conversation.3gp converter serrial number

It matters whether a message comes from a journalist who's trying to act objective... or a journalist who's being transparent about his or her perspective... or a partisan involved in the story... or someone in power... or a citizen (whom we used to call, in a centralized, one-way world a reader, viewer, user, consumer). The messenger matters. 3gp converter serrial number

And it doesn't matter, really, whether the message comes in print or video or online or HTML or RSS or MP3. But it does matter whether there is the opportunity for back-and-forth and questioning and addition and improvement. The conversation matters. 3gp converter serrial number

And there's the matter of time, too. Now news is instant and so analysis, fact-checking, perspective, and background all come later. Some see speed as a disadvantage: News is too fast for the truth to catch up. But speed can also be an advantage: I heard this week that it was only 18 minutes after Dan Rather's boo-boo that the truth started catching up with him. And look at stories this week about conspiracy theories on supposed vote irregularities: The Washington Post and the New York Times each conceded that though the theories started on the internet, so did their debunking. The messengers got their message out quickly by new media; other messengers joined in to add knowledge and correct mistakes; it happened quickly; we're all better off for it. Time matters, too. 3gp converter serrial number

: Now see Clay Shirky from that very Times story and his ruminations on quoter's remorse afterwards. What Clay said in The Times:

[Shirky] suggests that the online fact-finding machine has come unmoored, and that some bloggers simply “can’t imagine any universe in which a fair count of the votes would result in George Bush being re-elected president.”
And what he said about what he said:
But most of what rubs me wrong is that the quote is framed in a way that makes it about identity, not activity. One way to present this would have been to define an axis of interest: ‘some Democrats “can’t imagine any universe in which a fair count of the votes would result in George Bush being re-elected president.”’ Another would have been to define a relatively neutral category: ‘some writers “can’t imagine any universe in which a fair count of the votes would result in George Bush being re-elected president.”’3gp converter serrial number

Neither of those seems wrong, but the way it’s phrased, I seem to be suggesting that there are bloggers unmoored from the fact-checking pattern because they are bloggers, rather than because they are Democratic partisans who publish their thoughts using weblog tools. And that’s where it goes wrong. 3gp converter serrial number

I have long been of the opinion that the word weblog has no crisp meaning anymore, and is going to fade as a defining term for the same reason ‘portal’ did — there are too many patterns to be conveniently contained by one word. But here the nature of weblogging and webloggers is defined, from outside, as not just a category, but an identity.

In short: The messenger matters. Or in other words: Sometimes, the messenger is the message. 3gp converter serrial number

: Now go to the rest of Curley's speech at ONA. He's a little too hung up on the content -- which is damned understandable, considering the business he's in:

The franchise is not the newspaper; it's not the broadcast; it's not even the Web site. The franchise is the content itself.
Still, that shows an understanding of the atomization of content. He also quite admirably understands the power of RSS as a new means of customized delivery and of weblogs as a new means of publishing.
And, as we've seen so clearly in the last year or so, consumers will want to use the two-way nature of the Internet to become active participants themselves in the exchange of news and ideas. The news, as "lecture," is giving way to the news as a "conversation." ...3gp converter serrial number

There are 4 million bloggers out there on the Internet, making 400,000 posts per day. That works out to roughly 16,000 posts per hour, or about as many stories as the AP sends out in an entire day. And we thought we had a "fire hose!"3gp converter serrial number

Some experts estimate that as many as a half-million of those bloggers are actually making money at it. Indeed, only 16 of the top 100 blogs, as tracked by Technorati, are ad-free....3gp converter serrial number

An active two-way connection to the audience has always been the secret to success in our business, whether you're talking about inspiring a letter to the editor or selling classifieds and cars. 3gp converter serrial number

We can't help but benefit from this new engagement, and if some of the new "consumer-contributors" become "professionals" in their own right -- well, then, you've got more potential members for ONA.

He's 90 percent of the way there. Doc Searls would sit him down and teach him that we're not consumers anymore. But still, give the man credit. 3gp converter serrial number

: Last week, I went to three conferences (ouch): Ad:Tech (about online advertising), Foursquare (filled with top media execs and money people... and, no, I don't know how I got in either), and that meeting in Washington that was kind of about new media. 3gp converter serrial number

What struck me about all three is that they're getting there but they don't understand that third and new axis of media: the messenger. 3gp converter serrial number

They don't fully understand how distributed media is quickly becoming and how the old centralized marketplaces are becoming outmoded and what that is doing to all their businesses: Media companies are being challenged by their customers. Delivery companies are being challenged by a world of open standards and open source. Marketers are being challenged by their customers, too. 3gp converter serrial number

They don't understand how to engage in the conversation, how to go two-way: how to switch from DC to AC. 3gp converter serrial number

They don't understand that they're not in control now. That's what it's all about: Control. And given half a chance, your customers/consumers/readers/viewers/listeners/users/students/constituents/voters will always take control. 3gp converter serrial number

See Jarvis' First Law of Media: Give the people control of media, they will use it. The corollary: Don't give the people control of media, and you will lose. 3gp converter serrial number

Maybe I should call it Jarvis' First Law of Life. 3gp converter serrial number

We're taking control. We're contributing. We criticizing. We demand to be heard. We demand conversation. We want recognition for who we are and what we do and what we say and how and where we say it. 3gp converter serrial number

We messengers matter. 3gp converter serrial number

: LATER: See Jay Rosen on time and blogging at the ONA. 3gp converter serrial number

: But celebrity still matters, too. At ONA, Fimoculous is star-struck (he ain't the first) by Wonkette:

Post-party, en route to the bar, Wonkette passed by. I did a quick 180 and shuffled toward the elevator bank, where she was headed. Sliding in just as the doors were closing, I quickly realized I was in a packed elevator, and trying to start a conversation was going to be embarrassing. I mumbled a few words to her, she mumbled a few words back. She looked tired, so I left her alone.3gp converter serrial number

Funny, here I am in Hollywood, and if Jennifer Aniston walked by, I would hardly care enough to give her the once-over glance. But if our favorite internet media starlet happens to sashay by -- that's completely a different story.

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Vlogger

: Amanda Congdon has an (almost) daily vlog. 3gp converter serrial number

Citizens' marketing

: Here's a rundown of the viral marketing for Firefox. Of course, Firefox is as much a cause as a product; this won't work for most products. But it does show the power of the people formerly known as customers and now known as partners in this world of distributed media. [via Steve Rubel]3gp converter serrial number

November 12, 2004

F***ing Private Ryan: A complaint to the FCC

: I just filed this complaint to the FCC regarding the F word on "Saving Private Ryan":

I am filing a complaint regarding the airing of "Saving Private Ryan" on WABC TV in New York between 8 and 11 p.m. on Thursday, Nov. 11.3gp converter serrial number

I heard the word "fuck" -- or variants of it -- three times in one sentence.3gp converter serrial number

I personally believe that the FCC should not be regulating or overseeing speech in any way and should not be in a position to fine speech. I further believe the FCC's actions in this arena are unconstitutional as is the new indecency legislation about to give you further power to fine.3gp converter serrial number

However, because you have declared that Bono violated the law for saying "fuck" you must find that WABC and every other ABC outlet that aired "Saving Private Ryan" violated the law. There is no difference. Because you have fined Howard Stern far more for what many would argue is far less -- even for mere fart sounds -- you must fine WABC and other ABC outlets.3gp converter serrial number

You made this bed, FCC. Now lie in it.3gp converter serrial number

I am very serious about this complaint. I am not just making a statement. I am making a formal complaint and believe that you must be consistent in your enforcement of this law and regulation. Yes, I will tell you that I relish your embarrassment at having to fine very ABC outlet that aired "Saving Private Ryan" for every instance of a "bad" word or deed. I relish the opportunity to point out the absurdity and Constitutional offensiveness this law and of your inconsistent enforcement. And thus, I file this complaint with all seriousness. I received no reply to a prior complaint I filed against Oprah Winfrey for the same alleged sins that brought Howard Stern huge fines. I expect a reply to this complaint.3gp converter serrial number

Sincerely,3gp converter serrial number

Jeffrey Jarvis

The FCC has received other complaints [via LostRemote]3gp converter serrial number

I urge you to send your own complaint to the FCC along the same lines -- force their hand. It doesn't matter if you just cut-and-paste mine; that's what most complaints to the FCC look like. So here's the address: fccinfo@fcc.gov.3gp converter serrial number

: Also... I just got a response to my Freedom of Information Act request on another FCC action and I'll give you that Buzzmachine Exclusive (drum roll, please) in a day or two. 3gp converter serrial number

: These meddlesome moms even turned their complaint factory into an online form revealing just what a crock this really is. Get a load of the organization behind this: They're trying to create a stink about P&G recruiting homosexuals, teaching creationism, abortion, you name it. 3gp converter serrial number

Sane, mainstream Americans stand up and fight this fringe! Don't let them set the agenda! Show just how absurd their crusade is! They would censor what you can say and hear. Don't let them! Force the FCC into a corner show reveal just how offensive their offense is!3gp converter serrial number

Everything but the badge

: Staci Kramer is live-blogging the Online News Association blatherfest in Hollywood over at PaidContent. 3gp converter serrial number

How big?

: Adam Penenberg at Wired News reports potentially good news for small sites (which, presumably, includes citizens' media):

Next week, I/Pro and BPA are set to announce a $100 million program that will offer these niche sites an incentive to get audited. After I/Pro does its dirty work, a website would be eligible to receive ads from advertisers and ad buyers participating in I/Pro's Agencies for Interactive Audits program. Some of these members include Universal McCann, Beyond Interactive and eDiets.com. 3gp converter serrial number

The idea is to convince a whole generation of small and mid-sized sites to embrace one traffic standard. If this initiative is successful and I/Pro can make third-party auditing a requirement before ad firms will pay for advertising online, Barlin and his colleagues should stand to make a tidy profit.

A few reality checks: I wasted many a boring hour sitting on the first committee of the Audit Burea of Circulation to set up just such a traffic/audience audit structure as this for big publishers' sites. It no longer exists. The issue: Advertisers care about auditing their own ads; they don't really care about audited traffic counts for the sites. Now that may be somewhat different in this new world of smaller sites. But I know that the big publishers wouldn't pay for the overall circulation audits; advertisers said they wanted them but never really demanded them; they're gone. 3gp converter serrial number

Second, what is good about this is that it could start with setting standards for recording and reporting traffic and audience and that would be great. This new medium of small, distributed sites needs that badly. 3gp converter serrial number

Third, anybody who does that will need to be able to lash up traffic counts for ad hoc networks (e.g., networks of food bloggers or political bloggers an advertiser wants to buy). 3gp converter serrial number

Fourth, they also should set up the means and standards to let small sites do such things as set cookies so we can get accurate audience counts. 3gp converter serrial number

Fifth, they have to deal with RSS. That's new since this was last tackled. Many sites, such as this one, put out their entire content on RSS and that's not counted at all by SiteMeter. But what is counted on our servers is also misleading, since it keeps track of how many times a feed was downloaded when what we need to know is how many times the feed (or posts) were displayed (and thus presumably read). 3gp converter serrial number

Sixth, any new measurement regime should get ready to measure audio and video, too. And that opens up a whole 'nother can o' worms regarding measuring audience for content that is delivered via P2P such as BitTorrent. But we'll get to that later. One giant step for mankind at a time. [via PaidContent]3gp converter serrial number

Argue with me II: What old and new media can teach each other

: I'll continue to post Q&As from the Corante interview by Ernie Miller in hopes of getting discussion going over at Corante's site. The first one is below. Here's the second one on what big media and citizens media and learn from each other. If you feel so inclined to bark at me (or purr) please, by all means, go do so here.

EM: What lessons should the old media be learning? What lessons can they teach newer media?3gp converter serrial number

JJ: Big media has a great deal to learn from citizens' media. First and foremost, old media lost its humanity. It no longer knows how to talk to us eye-to-eye and it certainly doesn't know how to listen. It refuses to admit that it could be human and make mistakes (see Dan Rather, see Howell Raines). Big media must learn that news isn't over when it's printed and fishwrap; that is when the real story cycle begins, when the public asks questions and adds facts and corrects mistakes and adds perspective and helps get closer to the truth. Big media has to learn to be more honest -- that is, to level with its public, to reveal its prejudices and process as citizen journalists do. 3gp converter serrial number

On a practical level -- as advertising revenue and audiences decline -- big media has to learn from citizens' media how to do things cheaper, to spend less effort and money on commodity news we already know and more effort on the skills and products that make it valuable. And citizens' media can help big media do this: At Advance.net, my employer, we are experimenting with hyperlocal blogs written by people in our towns in our newspaper and online markets, providing news and information and viewpoints we never could afford to gather on our own and allowing us -- or so the strategy goes -- to target advertising so narrowly that we can attract a new population of advertisers who never could afford to use our products before: the golden fleece of the local drycleaner and pizzeria and lawyer.

Now on what citizens' media can learn from the big guys:
Though I do believe that big media has a great deal to learn from citizens' media -- if they'll listen -- I also believe there are lessons old media can teach the new. Some bloggers may not want to hear that, but I think it is the responsibility of established media to share those lessons with those who'll listen. 3gp converter serrial number

Some of the lessons are quite practical: Journalism -- and legal -- experts should be teaching bloggers about protecting themselves in the arenas of libel and copyright. And it's important to add that big media should see bloggers as colleagues and help extend such protections as shield laws to them, for what happens to bloggers could happen to journalists and vice versa. Journalists also can teach bloggers how to use the Freedom of Information Act to dog government. I'd even say that some bloggers would benefit from learning how to write better headlines and leads and nut graphs, as we quaintly call them. 3gp converter serrial number

Big media -- sometimes by unfortunate example -- also can provide object lessons in the value of the only real asset they hold, credibility, and how that can fall away if treated with disregard, haughtiness, or disrespect. See, again, The New York Times with Jayson Blair and CBS News with Rathergate. Pride goeth before the expose. But bloggers would be wise not to get haughty themselves, as I fear they will. When I appeared on CNBC's Capitol Report the other night with a blogger, he put himself above The Times and CBS because, he declared, he gets his facts right and they don't. I wanted to shout at him: Stop now before it's too late! Don't make yourself into an would-be institution, like Rather; don't put yourself up on a pedestal, because the fall from it is long and painful!

And now a plug for the Citizens Media Center:
(Pardon this interruption for a pledge moment: I've been trying to fund a Citizens' Media Center to deal with precisely these issues, serving four constituencies -- citizens' media practitioners, who could benefit from a few of these lessons; and journalism students, big media companies, and newsmakers, all of whom need to learn how to interact with their publics in new ways. It's my media mitzvah. Think this is a good cause? Email me. Now back to John Tesh and Yanni at Riverdance....)
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Behind the scenes

: I've mentioned a few times that Howard Stern might leave Viacom early. The other day, I said he's making noises about this. The New York Post reported yesterday that there are rumblings. The Wall Street Journal today gives the backstory:

The issue is that Viacom has withdrawn its financial support from Mr. Stern's legal fight against Clear Channel Communication Inc., which dropped his show earlier this year after the Federal Communications Commission began a crackdown on indecent broadcasts.... 3gp converter serrial number

Mr. Stern is negotiating to get out of his contract with Infinity so he can join Sirius earlier than the 2006 date currently planned. Mr. Stern announced his planned move to Sirius last month, live on his show. Sirius likely would have to pay a steep price to land Mr. Stern early; he brings in some $80 million annually in advertising revenue and $50 million annually in cash flow to Infinity, according to people familiar with the matter....3gp converter serrial number

At the end of June, Infinity and Mr. Stern filed a $10 million breach-of-contract suit against Clear Channel for dropping Mr. Stern's show earlier in the year. In July, Clear Channel countersued for $3 million, alleging Mr. Stern broke his contract with the company by not conforming to federal decency standards.

Everybody's playing a game of Hollywood chicken. My bet is that we'll hear Stern on Sirius by spring: The longer this goes on, the less Sirius has to pay to buy him out; the more he will be irritating Viacom; the more eager Viacom will be to replace him with whatever's next (once they figure that out); the more eager Stern will be to just get out; the more Sirius will want to start getting in new customers with Stern. Meanwhile, though, it would be a damned crime if Clear Channel is allowed to slink away in the night. 3gp converter serrial number

Across the divide

: Peter Berkowitz, conservative, has four suggestions for how the Bush administration should reach out to Democrats:
: Appoint a Democrat or two to the federal bench.
: Appoint a liberal hawk to a foreign-policy position.
: Bring a Democrat in to work on improving education.
: Set up regular meetings with Democrats on Capitol Hill.
And as for bridging the divide off Capitol Hill and among the masses, I suggest keg parties. 3gp converter serrial number

November 11, 2004

We have our house back

: The White House is no longer under siege. The barriers are down. The street is open. 3gp converter serrial number

I'm not talking politics. I'm talking about the building. 3gp converter serrial number

I went running t his morning in D.C. from Dupont Circle down to the White House and was delighted to see the construction and barriers in front of the White House suddenly gone. Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the black fence is closed to traffic but open to us, turned into a broad promenade with lamps, a beautiful setting, and a good view of all the TV reporters using the White House as their backdrop. 3gp converter serrial number

The last time I walked this way, you couldn't get anywhere near the White House. It felt as if this, too, had been stolen from us by the terrorists. 3gp converter serrial number

But now it's open again. God knows what security measures lie underneath these broad stones (trap doors?); at least it's invisible. So it almost appears as if Washington is finding its normal. 3gp converter serrial number

Add to that the lowering of security levels in New York, New Jersey, and Washington and it feels good. 3gp converter serrial number

I can hear the "comment" links being clicked now by those who would say this was all a right-wing conspiracy, if not a vast one: They left the barriers and alerts up, this theory says, until the election to keep us scared into voting for their side and now they're down. But I'm not a conspiracy theorist. If we were that good at organizing things we'd have organized Iraq better or we could at least organize American elections better. Oh, that's right, those are covered by conspiracy theories, too. 3gp converter serrial number

Nevermind. It was great to see the road to the White House opened up again. 3gp converter serrial number

Exploding radio

: Fred Wilson says I'm wrong about radio's reinvention happening online and in satellites it will come from HD radio. He's a big fan (and investor). Hope he's right. But I'll take a wait-and-hear attitude. 3gp converter serrial number

Argue with me

: Corante has started a series of interviews in the hopes of sparking conversation. I was honored to be the first interviewee and I enjoyed the opportunity to think through Ernie Miller's good questions and summarize what I think is the state of the art of media today. But now I want to hear from what you all say; so does Corante. So I'll post a few of the Qs & As here and ask that you add in your comments -- but do it at Corante. That's why I closed the comments here. Instead, go comment here. Here's the first:

Where do you see it all headed?3gp converter serrial number

JJ: The means of media are now in the hands of the people. 3gp converter serrial number

The people we used to call consumers, readers, or viewers (let's call them citizens now) will take more and more control of what we used to call media (I don't know what new name to give it, but now it's as much about conversation as it is about consumption). The elements of this upheaval:3gp converter serrial number

* Control: I say the most revolutionary invention in media was not the Gutenberg press but the remote control. It and the cable box, the VCR, and the TiVo enabled us to control consumption of media -- and we took advantage of that. Bad TV died; good TV rose in the ratings; HBO was born; TV exploded; TV improved -- thanks to the good taste and newfound control of the American public. 3gp converter serrial number

* Creation: Now come tools that let us create media: blogging software (which is merely history's cheapest easiest publishing tool connected to history's best distribution network) and all those neat things that come with Macs today. They allow us to make text, photo, audio, and video media. And what we make has value. Jonathan Miller, head of AOL, told me that 60-70 percent of the time spent on his service is spent with content created by his audience. That's where the money is. 3gp converter serrial number

* Marketing: At the same time -- thanks mostly to Google and blogs turning links into assets with tangible value -- we the people have the ability to market content; we do every time we link to it. Jon Stewart's blockbuster appearance on Crossfire got a few hundred thousand viewers on CNN but ten times that online thanks to the links of Fark and bloggers. 3gp converter serrial number

* Distribution: And the means of distribution are getting cheaper and faster: BitTorrent shares the cost of distribution across the network; RSS automates it; broadband will soon be part of the public infrastructure like roads or even a fundamental right like voting. So look again at Stewart on Crossfire: That segment didn't need carriage on a cable network with big clearance to be seen by millions; it got there via BitTorrent and iFilm. 3gp converter serrial number

So now anyone can control, create, market, distribute, find, and interact with anything they want. The barrier to entry to media is demolished. Media, always a one-way pipe, now becomes an open pool. And, most important, the centralization of media -- the marketplace, the network, the monopoly -- is replaced by a decentralized universe. This changes everything. It changes the relationships. It changes the economics. It changes the power.
One tangible result of this is nichefication of media. Some would say that's a bad thing; they wail about the death of great shared experience of American media. But the truth is that the shared experience lived only from the '50s to the '90s as the growth of three networks resulted in the death of competitive newspaper towns and we lived in a world of one-size-fits-all media. That is over. Now you can find the content that suits your needs. And that's good. That's about control. Which leads me to...3gp converter serrial number

Jarvis' First Law of Media: Give the people control of media, they will use it. The corollary: Don't give the people control of media, and you will lose. 3gp converter serrial number

Whenever citizens can exercise control, they will. Today they are challenging and changing media -- where bloggers now fact-check Dan Rather's ass -- but tomorrow they will challenge and change politics, government, marketing, and education as well. This isn't just a media revolution, though that's where we are seeing the impact first. This is a chain-reaction of revolutions. It has just begun.

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Arafat's crimes

: Here is a list of Arafat's victims. It is a very long list. This is just one day of terror:

... Oct 4, 2003 - Twenty-one people were killed, including four children, and 58 wounded in a suicide bombing carried out by a female terrorist from Jenin in the Maxim restaurant in Haifa. The Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the attack. The victims: Admiral (res.) Ze'ev Almog, 71, of Haifa, and his wife Ruth Almog, 70; their son Moshe Almog, 43, and grandsons Tomer Almog, 9, and Assaf Staier, 11, all of Haifa; Zvi Bahat, 35, of Haifa; Mark Biano, 29, of Haifa, and his wife Naomi Biano, 25; Hana Francis, 39, of Fassouta; Mutanus Karkabi, 31, of Haifa; Sharbal Matar, 23, of Fassouta; Osama Najar, 28, of Haifa, cook; Nir Regev, 25, of Nahariya; Irena Sofrin, 38, of Kiryat Bialik; Bruria Zer-Aviv, 59, her son Bezalel Zer-Aviv, 30, and his wife Keren Zer-Aviv, 29, with their children Liran, 4, and Noya, 1, all of Kibbutz Yagur. Lydia Zilberstein, 58, died on October 10 and George Matar, 57, died October 15....
[Thanks, Tom Gross]3gp converter serrial number
November 10, 2004

Arafat dead

: It's going to be a bumpy ride. 3gp converter serrial number

Reporting for duty

: Tim Oren had a most cool time at war college and I only wish he could tell us more about citizens' media and foreign affairs. But if he did, he'd have to delete us. 3gp converter serrial number

Ego v. id

: Robert Samuelson says in the Washington Post that it's not red v. blue or issue v. issue; it's psychological:

"Every liberal [thinks he's] intellectually superior to conservatives," Paul Begala, a former Clinton administration official, remarked on CNN. "Every conservative I know wants to think of himself as morally superior." Though these are generalizations (as Begala admitted), they represent real psychological imperatives. Politics increasingly strives to feed these self-images. The easiest way to make your people feel better is to cast their people as immoral, stupid, evil, corrupt or greedy. Politics, news and entertainment merge, because all seek to satisfy psychological needs....3gp converter serrial number

Although America isn't polarized, our political and media elites are working hard to make it so.

Amen.3gp converter serrial number

Patience

: Anne Applebaum in the Washington Post uses the example of East Germany to say that even the smoothest transition to democracy isn't a one-month affair. It takes a generation. That's a lesson for Iraq. 3gp converter serrial number

F the FCC

: That's not winter you feel coming. That's the chill of the FCC regulating speech. An Iowa station decided not to run Saving Private Ryan for fear of FCC fines. Its statement:

As many of you may be aware, the Federal Communications Commission has changed its standards for certain content related to programming broadcast before 10pm. These changes followed the Janet Jackson incident at the Super Bowl earlier this year. The inconsistent manner in which the FCC is choosing to apply these rules puts TV stations like ours in a most difficult position. As this relates to Saving Private Ryan, our concern centers on whether the FCC would consider the context in which the intense adult language and graphic battleground violence is presented in the movie. Would the FCC conclude that the movie has sufficient social, artistic, literary, historical or other kinds of value that would protect us from breaking the law? Can a movie with an "M" rating, however prestigious the production or poignant the subject matter, be shown before 10pm? With the current FCC, we just don't know. This is the case even though this same movie has been broadcast in primetime twice before on this station without complaint. Adding to our frustration is the fact that a fine motion picture like Saving Private Ryan can be shown on cable or satellite without any government agency restriction or regulation.3gp converter serrial number

We regret that we are not able to broadcast a patriotic, artistic tribute to our fighting forces like Saving Private Ryan. However, on this Veterans Day, we do wish to pay tribute to all the men and women -past and present -who so nobly serve our country.

[via LostRemote]3gp converter serrial number

: UPDATE: Lost Remote reports that 20 more stations dropped the movie.
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Bah humblog

: The Washington Post's Jennifer Frey reviews Polar Express and says, "To not adore it is to feel like a scrooge."3gp converter serrial number

Meet Scrooge:3gp converter serrial number

In the NY Times, unknown critic Manohla Dargis tries to show off in a most obnoxious way about a children's movie (my emphasis added):

It's likely, I imagine, that most moviegoers will be more concerned by the eerie listlessness of those characters' faces and the grim vision of Santa Claus's North Pole compound, with interiors that look like a munitions factory and facades that seem conceived along the same oppressive lines as Coketown, the red-brick town of "machinery and tall chimneys" in Dickens's "Hard Times." Tots surely won't recognize that Santa's big entrance in front of the throngs of frenzied elves and awe-struck children directly evokes, however unconsciously, one of Hitler's Nuremberg rally entrances in Leni Riefenstahl's "Triumph of the Will." But their parents may marvel that when Santa's big red sack of toys is hoisted from factory floor to sleigh it resembles nothing so much as an airborne scrotum.
Oh, come on. I haven't seen the movie; plan to. But this kind of look-at-me-I'm-wearing-a-thong writerly exhibitionism is just plain obnoxious. Has The Times no editors? Did no one read this and say, "Come on, you went a mile too far, try again"? Santa and Hitler? Santa and scrotoms? No one? 3gp converter serrial number

Exploding radio

: At the well-stocked snack table at the Foursquare conference, I spotted a badge that said "Sirius" and I dropped my muffin to make sure to congratulate the man for getting Howard Stern and helping to reinvent radio. I handed him my day-job card but also my blogcard, which advertises "blatherings on citizens' media, politics, technology, and Howard Stern." It's my fan-club card. The nice man didn't run away. 3gp converter serrial number

I suspect that Stern will be on satellite sooner than later. After a brief hiatus when he wouldn't mentioned satellite for fear of causing some corporate upheaval at Viacom, Stern has started talking about it again and also has started making noise about whether Sirius will buy out his terrestrial contract so all can move on. There's also been a little chatter about whether Viacom should buy Sirius but I doubt that. 3gp converter serrial number

This got me wondering about what I would do if I were in Viacom's shoes. I hope they don't pluck the nearest Stern clone. It's hard to call that the "safe" choice but it is; it's the obvious and dull choice. They need to reinvent radio. 3gp converter serrial number

But then I thought about the man with the Sirius badge. It's so much easier for him to reinvent radio. And for you, you podcasters, you. 3gp converter serrial number

Broadcast radio is stuck in the same bind as the rest of old media: They're mass in a new world of niches. They can't afford to go niche; the franchise is too valuable, the revenue too big, the stockholders too antsy. They, like TV broadcasters, have to pray they find the next big thing (but not so big that they get fined to hell and back by the FCC). 3gp converter serrial number

What would you do if you were programming any of these entities? I'll start a list. But I'd love to see what kinds of radio you'd like to hear -- whether on broadcast or on satellite or via podcasting. My start:3gp converter serrial number

: Reality radio: The best part of Stern besides Stern is his audience and their often startling creativity. Their song parodies and gags are often inspired (and, yes, just as often insipid). What about the first radio station that makes the audience the star, that highlights the best pieces and parodies and rants, challenging the people to create ever better bits. It works on broadcast or on the upstarts. 3gp converter serrial number

: Niche radio: The dating show -- real people, real dates. The new-mom show. The divorce show. The retirement show. The job-hunting show. The gadget show.... This won't work on broadcast. But it most definitely works on podcasting. And it works on satellite if they'd be smart enough to also podcast it so you don't have to schedule listening. This isn't appointment radio. It's download radio. 3gp converter serrial number

: Reading radio: Read the stuff I don't have to read -- the latest issue of The New Yorker, the best op-eds, the occasional blog essay. Surprise me. 3gp converter serrial number

Just a start... what do you want to hear?3gp converter serrial number

Dinosaur du jour

: I really should stop giving attention to big, old media Flintstones who bang their clubs on their heads and insult bloggers (also known as the public) to get attention. But I guess I can't resist revealing the idiocy of these blind fools. 3gp converter serrial number

The doofus du jour is Randall Rothenberg, once-was ad columnist for the NY Times now biding time in AdAge and as "director of intellectual capital" for Booz Allen (that is, he plays editor of a magazine nobody reads for an overpriced consultancy desperate for attention). There's no link on the AdAge site (I've been trying to get to editor Scott Donaton to bug him about this) and it's significant that I've seen no one else quote the column (guess fewer people read you than read blogs, Rothenberg) so I'll retype a few of the dingleberries for your entertainment:

Having reflected on blogs for the better part of two year, and having participated in the sport for a short two months, [note that he doesn't have the balls to give us the address - ed] I am prepared to report that blogging is little more than hype dished out largely by the unemployable to the aimless.
Rather like columns, eh?
Who in the world has the time to read this crap?
He also doesn't have the balls to list examples of crap. It's just all crap, it seems. As if crap can't be printed on paper.
Do some bloggers have sway? About as much as your average op-ed columnist.
I don't get the insult there. It's news that a mere blogger crapping crap onto a screen can have the influence of an honored print columnist.
A few even have meager, self-sustaining ad support.
And how much do you make from your column, Randall? Care to compare the take to Josh Marshall's or various of Nick Denton's blogs?
And, sure, blogs contributed to the outing of the false "60 Minutes" report on Bush's National Guard service. But a million monkeys filing second-by-second observations on Web sites would undoubtedly stumble on the real author of Shakespeare's plays.
I leave that one to you, dear readers. Comment among yourselves.
Blogs are this year's fad. Decentralizing the power of the press is certainly a signal development. Will a million unemployed press barons emerge? No--only the few who have something important and original to say. In the case of blogs, McLuhan got it wrong: The medium isn't the message. The message is the message.
Turn the mirror on yourself, commentator. You do no reporting for this dump. If you had, if you talked to the advertisers and agencies I've talked to recently, you'd find smart people who realize that this is about a new conversation with the market. They are eager to figure it out. Did you help them one bit? Did you impart any new information? Did you give them any evidence of your pissy position? No, sir, the only thing you're right about is that the message is the message and you don't have one. 3gp converter serrial number

: ON THE OTHER HAND.... I'm catching up on my AdAges and in the previous week's issue, Rance Crain (aka the boss) writes a smart column on blogs, the election, and marketing.

So marketers want consumers to be in control, do they?...3gp converter serrial number

Be careful what you wish for. What most marketers haven't come to grips with is just how much consumers are now calling the shots. They have the ability to change the way ad messages are being received -- and even come out with their own counter-messages....3gp converter serrial number

The blog creators are influencers -- people who pride themselves on knowing all kinds of arcane, insider details about the product, hence giving themselves credibility with consumers.3gp converter serrial number

What's clear is that advertising no longer has the luxury of being a one-way monologue....3gp converter serrial number

If blogs are liberating consumers, they are having an equal impact on voters. More and more people are turning to blogs for their take on political events of the day, and traditional journalism is taking the hit....3gp converter serrial number

The journalistic bloggers bypass professional journalists. Will consumer blogs bypass professional advertising agencies? As I said, be careful what you wish for.

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When will they ever learn

: Two dumbest ideas I've heard in ages:3gp converter serrial number

1. Howard Dean heading the DNC. Thus guaranteeing the Democrats life as an opposition party of the fringe. 3gp converter serrial number

2. John Kerry running again. You lost, Kerry. You lost. You blew it. Give it up. 3gp converter serrial number

The future of media

: Corante kicks off a series of interviews on the future of media. In the first, Ernie Miller asks questions of ... me. 3gp converter serrial number

[Oh, no, not more blathering from that guy, you say. Sorry but yes: More blathering. Ernie asks good questions, I give bad answers and take a lot of bits doing it.]3gp converter serrial number

It begins: "The means of media are now in the hands of the people."3gp converter serrial number

Each Q&A is set apart with an opportunity to leave comments. So please, go argue with me. Tell me how I'm full o' crap. Tell me what I missed. Say it better than I say it. Discuss among yourselves.....3gp converter serrial number

: UPDATE: Jay Rosen replies:

The problem with Big Media is that it learned how to "store" trust--in brand, reputation and ritual--and so forgot what it was. But the blogger has to make trust, from scratch as it were. So the blogger winds up knowing more about the current conditions for trust capture
Separately, Henry Copeland sent this email responding to Nick Denton's contention, below, that blogs are just websites:
Websites usually aren't written by humans, blogs usually are. Websites usually don't link to other websites, blogs usually do. So "blogs" are both less (corporate) and more (networked) than "websites." Twine these two characteristics together and blogs ARE radically new relative to other media.
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Forget red vs. blue states -- it's urban vs. ex

: Staring at more molecular red vs. blue maps, it became obvious: 3gp converter serrial number

This isn't about state vs. state. This is about urban vs. everybody else. Urban is blue, everybody else is red.3gp converter serrial number

But it's more than politics. It's about culture and pride and judgment and snot. 3gp converter serrial number

I was thinking this as I took my intolerable commute this morning: Two hours and 15 friggin' minutes -- with no visible accidents or rational explanations for the traffic jams -- to get from my house to the Hellish Hilton in New York for the Ad:Tech conference. And I'm asking myself, "Is this worth it?" and, "Is this anyway to live?" and, "How come I have to do this?" Well, because it's New York, of course, center of the universe. 3gp converter serrial number

The New Yorkers I know treat the fact that I live halfway to Cleveland as something they don't talk about out of deference to me. It's like Martha Stewart's friends not mentioning jail or felonies or stock or crab apples around her. I live in the 'burbs -- the suburbs, the exurbs, somewhere out there. But they like me anyway.3gp converter serrial number

And this, I saw, was the real divide in America. Most of America lives in the suburbs now, but we don't talk about that, we don't admit that. We in the media elite still act as if they're going to go away: Levittown will crumble. We act as if cities are still the center of the action in America and as if farms are what's left. No, most Americans are suburbanites today. And proud of it. Almost. 3gp converter serrial number

I will admit that I never thought I'd live in the 'burbs. In fact, I wrote that in an email to a long-long-lost friend just the other day, as in: Imagine that, me, in the 'burbs. We grew up in them and thought we'd never return. Go figger. 3gp converter serrial number

But here I am and I like the 'burbs. I have land and trees around me and convenience and places to park my car and good schools and quiet and stores and malls and a big house, nya, nya, nya. 3gp converter serrial number

Do I sound defensive? Sure. I'm a suburbanite. 3gp converter serrial number

When the majority of the country who voted for Bush talk about being demeaned it's not really about religion (we're not a nation of Bible-thumpers), it's about being from the boonies. The city slickers look down their noses at us 'burbans. They don't venture out here. They act as if it's a wasteland when it's our home. They are out of touch with the majority of America. The cultural reality yields the political reality. 3gp converter serrial number

And on the train -- the third train I take after a long drive -- I read David Brooks' column, one of his good ones, about just this:

Ninety percent of the office space built in America in the 1990's was built in suburbia, usually in low office parks along the interstates. Now you have a tribe of people who not only don't work in cities, they don't commute to cities or go to the movies in cities or have any contact with urban life. You have these huge, sprawling communities with no center....3gp converter serrial number

Movies from "The Graduate" to "American Beauty" have reinforced the idea that the suburbs are bland, materialistic, ticky-tacky boxes in a hillside where people are conformist on the outside and hollow within. The stereotype is absurd, but it closes off fresh thinking....3gp converter serrial number

On the one hand, people move to exurbs because they want some order in their lives. They leave places with arduous commutes, backbreaking mortgages, broken families and stressed social structures and they head for towns with ample living space, intact families, child-friendly public culture and intensely enforced social equality. That's bourgeois.3gp converter serrial number

On the other hand, they are taking a daring leap into the unknown, moving to towns that have barely been built, working often in high-tech office parks doing pioneering work in biotech and nanotechnology. These exurbs are conservative but also utopian - Mayberrys with BlackBerrys. 3gp converter serrial number

The Republicans won in part because Bush and Rove understand this culture. Everybody is giving advice to Democrats these days, and mine is don't take any advice from anybody with access to the media - including me, just to be safe.3gp converter serrial number

Get out into the sprawl, into that other conversation. Take your time. It's a new world out there.

There's still a touch of snoot in even this sympathetic piece, as if the 'burbs are still a strange place rather than the true center of the action and culture and politics in America. Nonetheless, Brooks is right. 3gp converter serrial number

And I ended my day hearing an unnamed major media executive (unnamed because it was at an off-the-record event) talking about this very same phenom: Big media isn't so much liberal as urban, he said; there's a different world view and the election revealed that. New Orleans went for Kerry; Louisiana went for Bush; St. Louis went for Kerry; Missouri went for Bush; urban vs. ex. 3gp converter serrial number

The best thing the Democrats can do is move out to the 'burbs. You'll survive, believe me. I did. 3gp converter serrial number

The NY Times vlogs

: Yesterday, I said Martin Nisenholtz of NYTimes.com recommended videos by tech writer David Pogue. He's right: They're damned good and they show what video online can be. He gives us quick, witty, informative reports on the new Palm or Google's desktop search. Being on video adds personality and lightens these potentially dully topics. Go to this page and look for the links to Pogue's reports down on the right. 3gp converter serrial number

The state of media

: This week, I'm seeing the state of media from many different perspectives: 3gp converter serrial number

From the top of the heap, I've been at the Foursquare conference, which is packed with the heads of damned near every major media business in the country. It's off-the-record and so I can't blog what I hear, but I will blog about what it inspires.3gp converter serrial number

From the front line of turning online into a business, I've been at the Ad:Tech conference, where I've heard advertisers, agencies, online publishers, and the odd blogger in the crowd about following the money. 3gp converter serrial number

And Wednesday night I head to a very grassroots session about changing media from the bottom up. 3gp converter serrial number

If I have any brain left, I'll blog about conclusions from all this on the train ride back from D.C. at the end of the week....
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November 09, 2004

Late

: David Letterman on the Middle East: "Is it too soon to hit on Mrs. Arafat?"3gp converter serrial number

On the Bushes' new dog: "Our last president also had a dog who would lick him under the desk."3gp converter serrial number

Blog M&A

: DefenseTech.org, a blog run by Noah Schachtman, was just bought by Military.com. 3gp converter serrial number

Our martyr

: Peaktalk has a link to video of Theo Van Gogh's memorial. 3gp converter serrial number

Ad:Tech: Online Publishers

: Next up: a session for web publishers to talk about their issues with smart folks up there: Martin Nisenholtz of the NYT, Larry Kramer of CBS Marketwatch, Caroline Little of WashingtonPost.Newsweek and Debora Wilson of The Weather Channel. 3gp converter serrial number

The theme among them all is that the way to grow is not to get new audience but to get the audience to spend more time on the site. Martin says his users spend 38-40 minutes per month at NYT.com and that's on the high end of the scale. 3gp converter serrial number

They like video. 3gp converter serrial number

They say that we need to acknowledge that people don't come in through the home pages. Every page is a home page, one says. 3gp converter serrial number

Martin talks again about taking advantage of the distributed nature of the web. He said good things about this at Web 2.0. 3gp converter serrial number

Martin sings praises to Wikipedia; it creates depth behind a simple page and "introduces serendipity into the experience." That's what a newspaper is, he says; it's not usually a search experience. 3gp converter serrial number

Martin says that even the NYT doesn't have enough content and has to leverage more content. I just spoke with someone from Starcom who made that point: Print publishers should be helping to organize content beyond their walls; that is their traditional role. 3gp converter serrial number

Wilson says they see a point very soon "when all electronic media will be IP delivered." That means not broadcast or cable. That means TV explodes. 3gp converter serrial number

Larry Kramer and Caroline Little say they reached profitability on cost-cutting for the last few years and it was very frustrating: "At one point I felt like sending out an email: Bring your own toilet paper to work." Now, they say, they have to invest in new product development. That is the way to grow. 3gp converter serrial number

Nisenholtz talks about the need to do more than just make profit but use that profit to mee the paper's prime directive. Covering the election is not profitable but it's necessary. 3gp converter serrial number

He also points to new video reports by NYT technology reporter David Pogue. I'm eager to watch them; won't try on a Treo connection...3gp converter serrial number

Ad:Tech: The Cheap Revolution

: Rich Karlgaard of Forbes scared the fancy pants off the advertisers at Ad:Tech this morning with his view of the Cheap Revolution.

After talking about what good shape the American economy appears to be in -- productivity is rising as fast as it did in the industrial revolution of the late 19th century; interest rates are low; jobs are rising -- he told a few stories: 3gp converter serrial number

A teenager in New Jersey started a new web development company -- Plotdev working with people around the world he met at elance.com. He works for big names (e.g., PDiddy) and when asked how much he charges vs. big New York shops, he said "10 percent." When you get an MRI, there's a good chance your results will be read by a radiologist in India making $24k a year vs the average $350k in America. A bigtime consultant look at Google's technology, all built on $2k pizza boxes and open-source, and said if they'd gone to big systems integrators to build it, it would have cost 10 to 15 times more. 3gp converter serrial number

We're entering a world where things can cost 10-15 percent of what they cost here now using big American companies. The Cheap Revolution.3gp converter serrial number

Of course, those new, cheap sources don't need to be halfway around the globe. The Jersey kid did it from here. Google did it from here. This isn't an outsourcing story. It's a story of the populist economy. And it's going to have a big impact on every segment of media.3gp converter serrial number

The Cheap Revolution has already come to print media: It's a lot cheaper to create a weblog than it is to create a print product. 3gp converter serrial number

The Cheap Revolution will next come to radio and TV; see various exploding TV posts. 3gp converter serrial number

The Cheap Revolution will come to advertising on the media side as citizens' media creates new and inexpensive outlets for marketing and as as smart, creative people with Macs build advertising for one helluva lot less than it costs today. 3gp converter serrial number

The Cheap Revolution will not -- cannot -- come from the top down. It will come from the bottom up. It will come from you. You want to start a media property? Blog. You want to start a radio show? Podcast. You want to start a TV show? Vlog. You want to ad an adman? Build a Gawker Media blogvertorial (sorry about that). Or better yet, rethink what it means for a marketer to have a conversation with customers; that's what these guys at Ad:Tech still don't seem to get. They will. 3gp converter serrial number

Ad:Tech: New platforms

: I"m at a session on new platforms: iTV, iRadio, interactive broadcast. Hmmmm. I think I'll plug podcasting. 3gp converter serrial number

: Ad guys get all excited about new ways to target TV advertising. But because of technology and privacy rules, it's not possible to get nearly the targeting ability of the internet. 3gp converter serrial number

: Robert Kernen of A&E talks about broadband advertising and gives a list of five ways to drive away the broadband user: 1. Put the message first. 2. Make the spot as long as the content. 3. Use flashy creative designed for TV. 4. Fo for the non-sequitor. 5. Use just one spot. 3gp converter serrial number

: All these folks are just trying to replicate what they already know -- in media and creative they're still acting like this is new a decade after online advertising started. They're not recognizing the next revolution of consumer control and citizens' media and new relationships. Like any industry, change comes slowly. 3gp converter serrial number

: Somebody in the audience asked how they will work with consumer-generated video. One of the guys upfront says the cream will rise to the top and they will work with it. "South Park didn't need to be created for TV." The network guy tries to poo-poo it because he's afraid of the competition. 3gp converter serrial number

: I asked a followup question broadening to text (blogs), audio (podcasting), video (vlogs): Are there people in their agencies who are following this? Are they treated as nuts? What will it take for citizens' media to get into plans? What advice do they have? The person from the Jose Cuervo agency said that advertisers are very interested in this space. They're starting by trying to create programs they hope will generate buzz rather than directly "seeding" that buzz (in other words, they hope that influencers will see their campaigns rather than advertising with those influencers). They're also concerned about an "unregulated" environment (not sure exactly what that means). But they're brainstorming to figure out how to get into this. Another panelist from an agency said that "advertisers want to fish where the fish are." If they were presented with buying 2,000 blogs at a $2 CPM they'd buy it. They're negotiating already.3gp converter serrial number

For the record

: At last, The Times corrects its error on Koz audience. N.Z. Bear made it happen. 3gp converter serrial number

Ad:Tech

: I'm at Ad:Tech at the Horrible Hilton in NY; no wi-fi; blogging via Treo when possible. Then at Foursquare, which is supposed to be off-the-record. Blogging when permitted. 3gp converter serrial number

November 08, 2004

Ad:Tech: The blogging panel

: Denton, Calacanis, Bruner and others talk to money.3gp converter serrial number

: Rick Bruner, now of DoubleClick, honchoed a study of blog audience sponsored by Gawker Media and SixApart and done by ComScore. He presented the first preliminary results for the first time today. This really was an outcome of Bloggercon II. Some big news here.3gp converter serrial number

ComScore looked at 15,000 blogs and their audiences. 3gp converter serrial number

35 million Americans, more than 20 percent of U.S. Intrernet users, read from 250 blog domains (that is, some large domains such as blogger.com and large individual sites; that mix does skew things a bit among big and small blogs; the numbers will be massaged, Rick said). That's up 10 perecent over the proir quarter. 3gp converter serrial number

Blog readers are more likely to be broadband users (index of 113 vs total population), college educated (index 114), higher income (index 116 at 100k household income), Asian (index 136... go figger). 3gp converter serrial number

: Jason and Nick put together a joint presentation. Who says they feud? 3gp converter serrial number

Jason asks for the yucks whether there is anybody who doesn't know what a blog is so we can make fun of them. A woman raises her hand. "You're kidding, right?" Jason says. Apparently not.3gp converter serrial number

What not to do: "faux blogs, bribe bloggers, blog when your company is not ready for complete transparency, write blog posts for your CEO."3gp converter serrial number

Nick: "Weblogs. They're just websites. You say you don't know what a weblog is? It doesn't really matter. They're just websites." I don't fully agree. Blogs have the added dimension of conversation; they have a new dimension of relationship.3gp converter serrial number

Jason says that only 20 percent of a CNET page is content and blogs flip that. 3gp converter serrial number

Nick: "Weblogs are not for every single advertiser but for advertisers who want to reach influencers, tastemakers."3gp converter serrial number

Nick: "Of people who read weblogs, one-third write weblogs or are journalists... The result of that is that any message that is targeted at weblog readers will reverberate beyond weblogs readers."3gp converter serrial number

: Next: Mike Nazzaro from Intelliseek, which measures "consumer generated content" (Doc Searls would hate that phrase -- they're not consumers; they don't generate; it's not content). I've mentioned Intelliseek's Powerpoint slides before so I won't repeat now. 3gp converter serrial number

Companies like this create jargon: They call bloggers speakers and others seekers. Nope, everybody's both. It's a conversation. We all speak and listen. 3gp converter serrial number

He shows a great timeline chart revealing how the bloggers' links to the Swifties preceded media coverage and Kerry's response. 3gp converter serrial number

He shows another chart tracking the Subservient Chicken buzz, starting in blogs a week before it hit news media. 3gp converter serrial number

He makes a big deal about segmenting blogs into "credentialed news" vs. "non-credentialed news" and regarding their emotions (cynical, inspired...). No, it's just people, man. It's just people. That's the point. 3gp converter serrial number

: At sessions such as this, the first question from nervous corporate types is, "What do the lawyers say?"3gp converter serrial number

Jason: "If youi're a bad person, blogging is very bad. If you're a good person, blogging is great."3gp converter serrial number

Nick: "Business blogging is generally a bad idea."3gp converter serrial number

Someone at Salon asks what's different about this: It's just another medium. Nick says yes. I keep adding that one thing is different: It's a conversation.3gp converter serrial number

Advertising

: I'm at Ad:Tech and will blog as possible. This won't be of interest to most but for those who care....3gp converter serrial number

: First is a session run by Jarvis Coffin (no relation) of BurstMedia. 3gp converter serrial number

: Doubleclick says 38 percent of Internet users account for 73 percent of pages viewed. That's what makes it hard to target across large audiences; you end up reaching the same people. 3gp converter serrial number

: The Doubleclick rep says that there needs to be a merger of data from servers (page views, unique users, etc.) and panels (demograpics). "We've got to understand the 'who' of online advertising." Doubleclick is running tests with Nielsen, IMS, and ComScore and will come out with a paper in January. That will be valuable to show overall audience. 3gp converter serrial number

: A research guy shows the obvious: start with a message; test your message; you will increase your efficiency. I wonder whether citizens' media becomes a good medium for testing message and creative (you're not blowing the budget just to test). 3gp converter serrial number

His next point: Frequency is not good; frequency reaches a point of diminishing returns at 4-5 impressions (which says that we shouldn't be selling month-long ads to advertisers for sites that are addictive). If it's too damned frequent it reaches a point of "actual brand desruction." Annoyance hurts brands.3gp converter serrial number

Finally, he shows how the type of ad unit make a difference. Banners are at the bottom of that chart. Video is at the top. Say hello to the ecnomic justification for exploding TV on the internet. Advertisers like and it works. 3gp converter serrial number

: Bad ad creative is a big issue (for which publishers get blamed when they are not paid for click-through). An IAB study found only 1 in 4 brands had effective creative. The Doubleclick person says, though, that advertisers ask about the units that perform, not the creative. It's not the size that's matters, it's what's in it.3gp converter serrial number

: Now I'm at a word-of-mouth marketing session. 3gp converter serrial number

The moderator is giving Dan Gillmor and his book lots of plugs.3gp converter serrial number

: It's a new world with its own jargon already: connectors, mavens, influencers, sneezers, talkability, spreadability...3gp converter serrial number

There are a few companies using word-of-mouth agents. I'm not at all clear how this works. Bzzagent doesn't pay its agents so I wonder why they do it. Tremor, started by P&G, says they want people to become advocates for brands but not necessarily users. I'm hearing very few specifics about how they work with blogs, Meetups, friend networks, and such. I'm confused. 3gp converter serrial number

Justin Kirby from DMC in England says that measuring what people are talking about is just more clutter. "It's not just about people talking on blogs, it's about people having influence." Another smart line from him: "Not every product is an iPod." Not everything is worth talking about. 3gp converter serrial number

I'm not hearing smart ways to interact with -- not use, interact with -- citizens' media. An opportunity for us; we're the experts in us. 3gp converter serrial number

: Transparency is an issue with this new industry and, well, it's even more important than it is in news: Lie and be found out and you will do damage. There's much fretting about what could "kill this industry." It feels as if using us is an "industry." 3gp converter serrial number

The word I'm not hearing from these folks -- that I should be hearing -- is "conversation."3gp converter serrial number

Then, at the end, somebody asked, "what's a conversation worth?" One panelist says, "10 times a :30 spot." Others scratch their head. Kirby says that's like trying to value a cocktail party (where the real currency is whether you get laid, he says... the audience member asks what that's worth...). They're starting to value each conversation with us. 3gp converter serrial number

We will want our cut, folks. 3gp converter serrial number

: Kirby mentions the word "push" and the audience hisses. Bad memories, eh?3gp converter serrial number

The decline of moral values

: Andrew Sullivan neatly summarizes this:

The percentage of people who said in 2004 that their vote was determined by the issue of "moral values" was 22 percent. In 1992, if you add the issues of abortion and family values together, that percentage was 27 percent. In 1996, it was 49 percent. In 2000, it was 49 percent. So the domestic moral focus halved in 2004. Obviously, the war took precedence, especially if you combine the categories of the Iraq war and the war on terrorism more generally. Again: the Republicans should be wary of over-playing their hand. If they believe the entire country is the religious right, the backlash could begin very soon.
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The mullahs muzzle their people again

: The New York Times reports today on the continuing crackdown on (read: repression of) speech in Iran, including the shutdown of web sites and blogs and the arrests of bloggers.

As part of its crackdown, the government has blocked hundreds of political sites and Web logs. Three major pro-democracy Web sites that support President Mohammad Khatami were blocked in August.... 3gp converter serrial number

The crackdown suggests that hard-liners are determined to curtail freedom in cyberspace. Many rights advocates had turned to the Internet after the judiciary shut down more than 100 pro-democracy newspapers and journals in recent years. 3gp converter serrial number

The number of Internet users in Iran has soared in the last four years, to 4.8 million from 250,000. As many as 100,000 Web logs operate, and some of them are political.3gp converter serrial number

The move to block Web sites has the support of a senior cleric, Ayatollah Makarem Shirazi, who declared in September in the hard-line daily newspaper Kayhan that Web sites should be blocked if they "insult sacred concepts of Islam, the Prophet and Imams," or "publish harmful and deviated beliefs to promote atheism or promote sinister books." 3gp converter serrial number

When the most recent wave of arrests began in September, authorities arrested the father of one Web technician, Sina Motallebi, who has taken refuge in the Netherlands. Mr. Motallebi had his own Web log and helped run one of the political Web sites. The father, Saeed Motalebi, was held for 11 days and then released. 3gp converter serrial number

"It seems that they do not want to deal with political figures who are behind the Internet sites and are willing to pay a price for what they are doing," said Alireza Alavitabar, a political scientist who is involved in the Emooz Web site. 3gp converter serrial number

"Instead they want to deprive the Web sites of their staff and the capability to run them," he said....3gp converter serrial number

Omid Memarian, who was arrested Oct. 10, was a journalist and a well-known figure among private aid groups. He had his own Web log in both Persian and English....3gp converter serrial number

"They want to find out how the Web sites are run, intimidate these young people and put an end to this medium," said Rajabali Mazroui, Hanif Mazroui's father. 3gp converter serrial number

The judiciary is drafting a law that will define cybercrimes. The chief of the judiciary, Ayatollah Mahmoud Shahroudi, has said the law will define the punishment for "anyone who disseminates information aimed at disturbing the public mind through computer systems."

They will fail. This can't be stopped now.
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Free

: A reminder that the Wall Street Journal online is free this week. This will drive more traffic to sell more advertising and, it's assumed, drive more people to be so enthralled they end up subscribing. It's like your cable company giving you HBO free for a week -- only without the bare breasts. 3gp converter serrial number

: WSJ.com also launched an econoblog.3gp converter serrial number

Freedom of speech and life

: Theo Van Gogh was killed for words and images. 3gp converter serrial number

You can go hear and see them here. Download that Bitttorrent (and then go here and download the xvid codec). 3gp converter serrial number

: UPDATE: The Jerusalem Post argues that the country has become too tolerant... of intolerance.3gp converter serrial number

A Dutch Muslim school was bombed and mosques have been attacked. 3gp converter serrial number

3gp converter serrial number

It is in English with Dutch subtitles. A barely veiled woman recites stories of abuse with much invocation of Allah. 3gp converter serrial number

It is words. Stories. News. 3gp converter serrial number

A man died for it.3gp converter serrial number

This is not about just protecting the freedom to speak. It is about protecting the freedom to live. 3gp converter serrial number

Loathe it or leave it

: San Franciscans are getting ready to jump ship after the Bush victory, says Reuters:

...[T]hey are waving "United States of Canada" maps, redrawn to show Canada extending down to include California, New England and the other so-called "blue states" that voted decisively for Massachusetts Democratic Senator John Kerry in the U.S. presidential race.3gp converter serrial number

Some are cancelling plans to travel to neighbouring "red states," where Bush drew most of his support. They are asking serious questions about the future of American democracy....

As much as I'd enjoy making fun of my former fellow 'Friscans, the Reuters story is more laughable, for it has nothing to back up what it says is this trend. No, it will still be impossible to park in San Francisco.3gp converter serrial number
November 07, 2004

Michael Moore lost the election

: Michael Moore lost the election for John Kerry. 3gp converter serrial number

Michael Ledeen thinks the Guardian lost it by having a bunch of ferners try to influence our campaign. 3gp converter serrial number

You could argue that the French and Old Europe lost it for Kerry because he tied his star to them -- now how dumb was that? -- and we're still pissed at them for deserting us. 3gp converter serrial number

You could argue that bin Laden lost it for Kerry by showing up again. Yes, you'd think that this only made Kerry's point about letting OBL slip out of our fingers. But never underestimate our prideful anger. 3gp converter serrial number

But I say instead that Michael Moore lost it for Kerry. He lost it by starting the mudslinging over military service when he accused Bush of being a deserter; this opened the door for the Swiftie mudmen and cut short the ability to condemn them for it. 3gp converter serrial number

He lost it by making unfair attacks on Bush (when he could have made fair attacks), helping Bush to rally his fans around him. 3gp converter serrial number

But mainly, Moore lost the race for Kerry and the Democrats by turning them, by association, into a bunch of rabid seething fringie liberal loonies, all angry and extreme and too quick to forget what the real war is and who the real enemy is. 3gp converter serrial number

The right-wing is usually the side that is portrayed as fringie and rabid and extreme and, Lord knows, many of them are. 3gp converter serrial number

But Moore made the left seem just as extreme if not more so. 3gp converter serrial number

He demanded that we should all be as angry as he is. But what if we don't want to be angry at our own side? 3gp converter serrial number

He demanded that we see conspiracies everywhere but where they exist: in the Islamofascist world. 3gp converter serrial number

He lowered the level of discourse to this: hyperbole, hype, lies by omission, and attack as a substitute for fact and discussion.3gp converter serrial number

And that make it harder for Kerry to complain when the other side did likewise to him. 3gp converter serrial number

Bush did a better job of maintaining a thin wall of separation between him and the 527 nutjobs on his side. I don't say that the wall was real, but the appearance of it was just real enough. Kerry did a bad job of separating himself from Moore; he didn't try. So to many, Moore's mud became Kerry's mud.3gp converter serrial number

There were thousands, hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of voters who were looking for an alternative to Bush, a reasonable, open, safe alternative. Moore made the Democrats look not like an alternative but the attackers.3gp converter serrial number

And Moore -- and Howard Dean and Air America and others -- pushed Kerry and the Democrats into the position of being the anti-war party at a time when we are at war. That led to one flip-flop too many. Big mistake. 3gp converter serrial number

Moore was brilliant at creating a media frenzy. The media bought his hype and helped him make a fortune on his little flick. They made the mistake of thinking that each ticket bought to see that flick was worth many times more votes. No, the people who went to see F9/11 weren't all buying Moore's gospel. They were buying the hype. And that's all Moore was selling: Hype. He wasn't doing it for the good of the country. He was doing it for the good of Michael Moore. 3gp converter serrial number

But who wants to vote for the party of seethers and demeaners? Who wants to join the angry people and think that's going to improve life? Who feels welcome in the company of disapprove snots? That is the party of Michael Moore. 3gp converter serrial number

The moral to the story: Don't listen to Michael Moore. He led you astray, Democrats. 3gp converter serrial number

And Republicans: Just as I am tell Democrats not to believe that most of you are rabid religious nuts, you'd be unwise to think that most Democrats are rabid Michael Moore nuts; that would be just as wrong. 3gp converter serrial number

: I tried to warn you. 3gp converter serrial number

: See also Andrew Sullivan singing this hymn in harmony on Bill Maher, below. 3gp converter serrial number

: Roger L. Simon respectfully disagrees. 3gp converter serrial number

Somebody buy these Brits a map

: Getaloada this incredible lead to an Observer (that is, weekend Guardian) editorial:

Some in the United States are already calling Bush's presidential victory the revenge of the confederacy, and there is an element of truth in that. The states and territories which in 1861 fought for the right to own slaves voted for George Bush; those that did not voted for John Kerry.
How's the saying go? Ohio shall rise again! But of course, the real effort is to say that Republicans like slavery. Did the people of India, America, Canada, Australia, and half the world ever get to vote for their Queen?3gp converter serrial number

Yes, incredible

: I loved The Incredibles. 3gp converter serrial number

It is a battlecry against mediocrity. It indicts lawyers and bureaucrats for the damage they cause playing it safe. It turns the gift economy -- doing right because it's right -- into a superhero cause. It warns of the danger of celebrity. 3gp converter serrial number

It also reveals the corporate and personal culture of Pixar v. Disney, Apple v. Microsoft, Jobs v. Eisner. 3gp converter serrial number

But most of all, it's just fun and funny and exciting and new. 3gp converter serrial number

And Holly Hunter's voice is oddly sexy. 3gp converter serrial number

New

: Technorati has a new version up with lots of improvements.3gp converter serrial number

Note, however, that the counts of incoming blogs linking to a site have not been updating for weeks now. I've whined about it. Would have loved to watch the patterns for various blogs during the election. They say they're working on it. 3gp converter serrial number

November 06, 2004

The final Maher: Sullivan v. Chomsky & Maher

: As is my habit, I watched Bill Maher a day late. It's the season finale coinciding with the Democratic finale.3gp converter serrial number

: Former Sen. Alan Simpson lectures Bill Maher for making fun of not only the religious right but also of gays. It turns downright nasty. Maher was trying to be nice to Simpson. But Simpson, in his curmudgeonly way, was also trying to lecture the left, telling them what I say below: You'll never win an election if you make fun of people who go to church. 3gp converter serrial number

: Susan Sarandon starts going off on her dumb paranoid drool about election fraud. "Come on, he lost. He lost by a lot of votes," says the sensible Maher. 3gp converter serrial number

Maher asks whether "all the show people stumping for Kerry did more harm than good." Good question. Doesn't matter what Sarandon's answer is. 3gp converter serrial number

: Maher says Andrew Sullivan having a must-read blog inspires him to get on the internet. Maher used to blog. 3gp converter serrial number

: Andrew says that the Hollywood left did their best to win the election for Bush and galvinized the center of the country by patronizing to them. Same message below (and shortly above). "People are tired of being demeaned. Don't demean people and then expect them to vote for you." 3gp converter serrial number

: Sullivan says people in the middle of the country felt "they were being written out." Maher replies: "How were they written out? They're running everything?"3gp converter serrial number

: Sullivan does very well on this show; he's the best guest Maher has. He should be on TV regularly -- as in, paid to be on TV. 3gp converter serrial number

: Maher talks to Noam Chomsky, who's being professorially glib. 3gp converter serrial number

"The invasion of Iraq was simply a war crime," Chomsky says to Maher's audience's hooting. 3gp converter serrial number

Maher treats Chomsky with a gentleness he gives no guest: "Why do you think we did Iraq?" When did Jay Leno take over the show? Why for Chomsky? Fill in your answer here. 3gp converter serrial number

Maher says the world is not better off without Saddam Hussein; he said the people in his rape rooms are better off but the world is not. Even Chomsky won't pull back that far. Chomsky says the world is better off without Saddam Hussein. 3gp converter serrial number

: Sullivan reacts: "Welcome to the world view of the far left in which the United States is the source of all evil... That is why you lost the election." 3gp converter serrial number

After purring for Chomsky, Maher yells at Sullivan. 3gp converter serrial number

Maher tries to say that Chomsky has a different definition of freedom and democracy. Sullivan says quite rightly that's wrong: There is either freedom and democracy or there is not.3gp converter serrial number

Sullivan: "You don't have to believe to the United States is perfect to believe it is a force for good in this world." 3gp converter serrial number

He says listening to Chomsky denegrate the United States as he does is wrong and is "one of the reasons the left has lost."3gp converter serrial number

He challenges Maher: If Sullivan is supposed to condemn the Jerry Falwells and haters of the right, should he not condemn Chomsky as a hater of the left? 3gp converter serrial number

"You treated him like a folk hero. You didn't ask him a single tough question." Amen, Andrew. 3gp converter serrial number

It can happen to you II

: My friend Hossein Derakhshan, the pioneering Iranian blogger, reveals that he is under death threat:

U.S. election aside, hot topic of the last couple of weeks in Persian blogosphere has been a blog called "Islamic Army" in which its anonymous author has threaten a big list of Iranian blogger for their "insults" to Allah, Prophet Mohammad and other Shia Imams....3gp converter serrial number

They now have picked particular posts from my Persian blog, in which they think I've insulted the God, and other sacred concepts of Islam and therefore, quoting from a Quranic verse, I deserve to be killed....3gp converter serrial number

I never took them seriously before, but this time I'm a bit concerned, because they seem to be a different group who have possibly liked the original blog and have tried to adopt their message and to prepare enough evidence for the original claims, at least about me....

This is real and it is frightening. 3gp converter serrial number

See the tragedy of Theo Van Gogh, murdered because he dared to criticize Muslims. 3gp converter serrial number

It can happen to Van Gogh. It can happen to Hoder. It can happen to anyone. Even you. 3gp converter serrial number

: Hoder writes this, ironically, on the fourth anniversary of the vibrant, revolutionary Persian blogosphere. 3gp converter serrial number

: I spent more than an hour last night watching the vlogs of Theo Van Gogh. I don't speak Dutch. Doesn't matter. What I see here is a charming, liked, funny man full of life and talent. And he is gone because he dared criticize Muslims. 3gp converter serrial number

Imagine if Jon Stewart were gunned down because of a skit or Jay Leno because of a joke. That is what happened here. It is an atrocity. And it didn't happen in Iraq. It happened in Amsterdam. 3gp converter serrial number

It could happen here. 3gp converter serrial number

: This sounds familiar:

Deputy Prime Minister Gerrit Zalm, announcing a review of security after a government meeting on Friday, spoke of “war” following the killing of filmmaker Theo van Gogh and death threats to politicians Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Geert Wilders, now in hiding. 3gp converter serrial number

“We in return declare war, we will step up the fight and make sure radical Islamist movements will disappear from the Netherlands,” he said. “This is not just theoretical, but practical extremism and that is new for the Netherlands.” ...3gp converter serrial number

The newspaper Volkskrant said in an editorial on Saturday ... “The open character of our democracy is also its weakness. That can be diminished but never abandoned,” it said.

: I will admit that this is chilling. Who's going to go express the full extent of his or her disdain for these criminals with a fear that it could mean attack? I've seen what these people can do, first-hand. I saw them murder 3,000 that day. We've seen them murder Theo Van Gogh because of his words. We've seen so many crimes. I won't list the American writers and even webloggers who could be at risk. But I fear for them. 3gp converter serrial number

It can happen to you. 3gp converter serrial number

Paying the price

: Mark Cuban is fined for a blog post. 3gp converter serrial number

Whose values II

: The NY Times op-ed page today reflected the post I wrote Thursday on the bogus impact of "moral values" on the election as measured by the bogus exit polls (proving only that print punditry has a helluva lead time): 3gp converter serrial number

: Gary Langer, head of polling for ABC News, said he fought against including the "moral values" question in the joint exit poll because it was so vague and it was the ultimate mom-and-apple pie question: Who's against moral values here?

Pre-election polls consistently found that voters were most concerned about three issues: Iraq, the economy and terrorism. When telephone surveys asked an open-ended issues question (impossible on an exit poll), answers that could sensibly be categorized as moral values were in the low single digits. In the exit poll, they drew 22 percent.3gp converter serrial number

Why the jump? One reason is that the phrase means different things to people. Moral values is a grab bag; it may appeal to people who oppose abortion, gay marriage and stem-cell research but, because it's so broadly defined, it pulls in others as well....3gp converter serrial number

Moral values, moreover, is a loaded phrase, something polls should avoid. (Imagine if "patriotism" were on the list.) It resonates among conservatives and religious Americans. While 22 percent of all voters marked moral values as their top issue, 64 percent of religious conservatives checked it.

: David Brooks, on whom I tend to be binary, writes a very good column on the bull that is "moral values" as an issue.
If you ask an inept question, you get a misleading result.3gp converter serrial number

The reality is that this was a broad victory for the president. Bush did better this year than he did in 2000 in 45 out of the 50 states. He did better in New York, Connecticut and, amazingly, Massachusetts. That's hardly the Bible Belt. Bush, on the other hand, did not gain significantly in the 11 states with gay marriage referendums. 3gp converter serrial number

He won because 53 percent of voters approved of his performance as president. Fifty-eight percent of them trust Bush to fight terrorism. They had roughly equal confidence in Bush and Kerry to handle the economy. Most approved of the decision to go to war in Iraq. Most see it as part of the war on terror.

It's a simple and clear analysis. He then says, "The fact is that if you think we are safer now, you probably voted for Bush. If you think we are less safe, you probably voted for Kerry." I disagree there. That assumes that terrorism is the only issue. If it were, he'd be right (and I'd have voted for Bush). But there were many issues and each of us weighed them differently. That's why all efforts to explain an election over one issue are wrong. So he's oversimplifying the opposition, slightly. But he's also right about the opposition oversimplifying the victors:
But the same insularity that caused many liberals to lose touch with the rest of the country now causes them to simplify, misunderstand and condescend to the people who voted for Bush. If you want to understand why Democrats keep losing elections, just listen to some coastal and university town liberals talk about how conformist and intolerant people in Red America are. It makes you wonder: why is it that people who are completely closed-minded talk endlessly about how open-minded they are?
This is why I wrote my post-election peace pledge and my letter to Democrats: Insulting the people who voted for Bush is no way to win the next election. 3gp converter serrial number

: Nick Kristof says it's time for Democrats to be more open and he's right. He also says our model should be Labor under Tony Blair and he's way right. He's way wrong in a minute....

As moderates from the heartland, like Tom Daschle, are picked off by the Republicans, the party's image risks being defined even more by bicoastal, tree-hugging, gun-banning, French-speaking, Bordeau-sipping, Times-toting liberals, whose solution is to veer left and galvanize the base....3gp converter serrial number

Mobilizing the base would mean nominating Hillary Rodham Clinton in 2008 and losing yet again. (Mrs. Clinton has actually undertaken just the kind of makeover that I'm talking about: in the Senate, she's been cooperative, mellow and moderate, winning over upstate New Yorkers. She could do the same in the heartland ... if she had 50 years.) 3gp converter serrial number

So Democrats need to give a more prominent voice to Middle American, wheat-hugging, gun-shooting, Spanish-speaking, beer-guzzling, Bible-toting centrists. (They can tote The Times, too, in a plain brown wrapper.) For a nominee who could lead the Democrats to victory, think of John Edwards, Bill Richardson or Evan Bayh, or anyone who knows the difference between straw and hay.

He's way wrong in thinking that Edwards, Richardson, or Bayh are the people to re-energize the party. They are dull and safe. They don't have vision. Clinton (Hillary) is a centrist who has a vision and can energize the party. She'll piss off the opposite fringe, but that won't matter. 3gp converter serrial number

He also says that the Democrats need to work hard not to be the obstructionist party over the next four years. Again, I agree. I disagree with his particular prescription for how to do that, but that's all a matter of politics. The moral to the story is the same. 3gp converter serrial number

: Finally, Steven Waldman of Beliefnet looks like a bit of a fool quoting the "moral values" poll results as if they mean something, surrounded by those who show how it doesn't. 3gp converter serrial number

: The Democrats must find the path to:
1. Not insult the victors by acting as if they're all a bunch of right-wing religious nut jobs if they voted for Bush. They are your neighbors.
2. Not obstruct progress in the country by insisting on only attacking the administration instead of finding ways to work with it.
3. Not hold to ideology and become the (small) party of exclusion. I know what that felt like during this election; just because I supported some of what Bush did, I was seen as a disloyal unDemocrat and I swear there were some who would rather have held onto their orthodoxy than get my vote. That's no way to win elections. 3gp converter serrial number

Bush or bust

: Nola.com reports that a voter had to take off her shirt to vote. Well, people have taken off a lot more for a lot less in New Orleans.

Debbie Dupeire was so intent on helping to re-elect the president Tuesday that she shucked her Bush-Cheney T-shirt and voted in her bra after being told that state election law prohibits displaying a candidate's name in a polling place.
: I was out helping at the church rummage sale today when I got email on my Treo from Glenn Reynolds begging for the greater good of blogging for the picture to be put on the story so all could see (because Nola.com is one of my day-job sites). I emailed the indefatigable editor of Nola.com, Jon Donley, right there from the church (which almost matches the time I blogged an FCC fine against Howard Stern from the choir loft). Jon wasted no time copying the picture from a photo gallery to the story. And there you have it. Who says blogs don't improve news?
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Up the creek

: Twice this morning on the Today show, a guest talking about the fight over Outkast using Rosa Parks' name complained that the lyrics also included the phrase "up shit's creek." He didn't bleep himself and call it crap creek. Today didn't (and couldn't) bleep it. He did it once and nothing was said; he did it again and Lester Holt moved it along; at the end, Holt apologized for the language. 3gp converter serrial number

Oh, no, the country is going to fall apart. 3gp converter serrial number

Calling the moral values police. 3gp converter serrial number

Once the indecent indecency bill is signed into law, NBC could be fined millions of dollars for that one word twice said. And the guest could be fined into bankruptcy for these two incidents of too-free speech. 3gp converter serrial number

Access isn't power anymore

: An important change has come to the relationship of media to power to people:3gp converter serrial number

It used to be, until very recently, that the press had access to power and that, in turn, is what gave them power. 3gp converter serrial number

But now those in power have cut off the press' access. See how the Bush White House has successfully reduced leaks and whispers and locked down its control. See how FCC Chair Michael Powell tried to refuse to take phone calls from citizens when he appeared on Ronn Owens' show (but Howard Stern broke through). 3gp converter serrial number

This same thing happened much earlier in show biz; I witnessed it when I was at People in the '80s: When the stars realized that their faces and stories sold magazines, the power shifted from journalists, who controlled access to the audience, to flacks, who controlled access to the stars. The stars were now worth more than the audience. 3gp converter serrial number

So now access is locked down. Reporters can't get to those in power except when they want to spin. Magazines can't get to stars except when they have something to promote. Business reporters have trouble getting to corporate heads, who now hide behind SEC rules to control access. 3gp converter serrial number

At the same time, the internet means that media no longer controls access to the audience. Politicians, marketers, celebrities, anybody can now bypass the media and go directly to the people and the people can respond. 3gp converter serrial number

Nobody has access.3gp converter serrial number

So now everybody has access. 3gp converter serrial number

This means, you see, that you and I have almost as much access as the big-time reporters (read: nearly none). And because we can write blogs and get read in the halls of power and quoted in media, we have access to power through a side door. And with the internet, we have access to audiences we can build overnight; they're not huge, but they're growing. 3gp converter serrial number

Jay Rosen writes about this -- more eloquently and intelligently, of course -- in his post-election post about changing roles in news:

: Washington journalism likes to imagine itself the Administration's great adversary, but most of the time it relies on access journalism-- not the adversarial kind. "Sources make news" is the first tenet in that system, and that gives sources power. But access journalism makes less and less sense when there is no access, and sources rarely deviate from the party line. The White House press corps has always been based on access, so much so that the alternatives to it have almost been forgotten. I think there will be pressure to abandon the whole dream of press access under Bush, and re-position some forces accordingly. 3gp converter serrial number

: Interesting, then, what Daniel Weintraub of the Sacramento Bee said at PressThink this week: "When my colleagues complain about a lack of access to Schwarzenegger at his media events, I ask, is that kind of access really critical to our doing our jobs? Is it our job to get close enough to describe the color of his tie, or his interaction with a voter, or is it our job to deconstruct the governor's (or president's) policies and proposals, their effect or potential effect on the public, their cost and consequences? Sure it's great to have an interview with the man, or fire away questions at a press conference, but I think good journalists are capable of informing the public without the benefit of these tools." He's thinking of alternatives to access because he's already realized it: Arnold is post-press in his political style.

We rethink what access matters. We rethink the power that access accords. We rethink our jobs and what reporters should really be doing (just because 15,000 reporters get access to the political conventions, does that mean they should go?). We rethink the ability of the rest of the people -- us -- to have access to news and information and viewpoints and audience and power. 3gp converter serrial number

: That's only one of Jay's points. He also summarizes the important changes that have come to the scene during this election, including the likely growth of opinionated, even opposition press. More on that later. 3gp converter serrial number

November 05, 2004

Last stop on the gravytrain?

: The Wall Street Journal reports on political bloggers' worries about revenue after the election. It will fall but it won't die, I'll bet. (Free link.)3gp converter serrial number

The world of blogs

: Almost forgot to link you to Daniel Drezner and Henry Farrell's very good story on blogs and the world stage in Foreign Policy. They showed it to me early a few weeks ago but I couldn't link to it then. I recommend it now. 3gp converter serrial number

Size matters

: Seth Godin's ChangeThis just passed 100k downloads. If they'd put it up in HTML, I'd bet they'd have 10 times the readership. Why not try, Seth? Put up half your "manifestos" in HTML and see what happens... You are the man who inspires many, including me, to listen to your customer....3gp converter serrial number

Dumbest anchor alive

: When I was a TV critic, I always wanted to write a column about Dan Rather, Dumbest Anchor Alive. I never got around to it because I'm lazy and I would have had to watch hours of Rather to compile my case. But Tony Pierce has done us the public service of quoting Ratherisms from election night alone. I think he thinks he's going to be gone soon, so he got in as many as he could. A sampling:

"His lead is as thin as turnip soup." 3gp converter serrial number

"This race is humming along like Ray Charles." 3gp converter serrial number

"The presidential race is swinging like Count Basie." 3gp converter serrial number

"This race is hotter than a Times Square Rolex." 3gp converter serrial number

"Ohio becomes like a sauna for the two candidates. All they can do is wait and sweat." 3gp converter serrial number

"One's reminded of that old saying, 'Don't taunt the alligator until after you've crossed the creek.'" 3gp converter serrial number

"Bush is sweeping through the South like a big wheel through a cotton field." 3gp converter serrial number

"In southern states they beat him like a rented mule."3gp converter serrial number

"If you try to read the tea leaves before the cup is done you can get yourself burned."3gp converter serrial number

"We need Billy Crystal to Analyze This"3gp converter serrial number

"You know that old song, 'it's delightful, it's delicious, it's de-lovely' for President Bush in most areas of the country."

3gp converter serrial number

Next round

: The folks at CrushKerry.com have registered CrushClinton.com. 3gp converter serrial number

It can happen to anyone, even you

: The murder of Dutch filmmaker Van Gogh by Islamic terrorists means one thing: 3gp converter serrial number

It can happen to you.3gp converter serrial number

Salman Rushdie lived under the threat of murder. Now the threat is real. 3gp converter serrial number

It can happen to an author... or a filmmaker... or anyone who dares to offend.3gp converter serrial number

: Andrew Sullivan points to a very good Dutch blog with regular updates. 3gp converter serrial number

: Here is the text of the frightening and disgusting note left on Van Gogh's body. 3gp converter serrial number

: A commenter below says the Dutch want a Patriot Act of their own. I don't blame them. 3gp converter serrial number

: Here is the site Van Gogh edited: De Gozonda Roker. 3gp converter serrial number

: Van Gogh put up wonderful vlogs -- daily video logs. Watch Supercool here. 3gp converter serrial number

: Here, you can send condolences. 3gp converter serrial number

: I don' t know whether this is right and I don't know whether I figured out the Dutch correctly, but this forum dedicated to assassinated Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn says that Van Gogh was murdered 911 days after Fortuyn. It also says that as 911 is our emergency number and the mass murder occurred here on 9/11, in Holland the emergency number is 112 and this murder occurred on 11/2. More here (all in Dutch). 3gp converter serrial number

November 04, 2004

Another desperate call for attention

: Frank Barnako makes another logical two-step in his effort to attack bloggers and get blog traffic. Whining about bloggers' release of (meaningless, laughable) exit-poll data, he sniffs:

The problem some high-profile bloggers have now is they have proven to be untrustworthy. The brush paints a wide swath. Even Wonkette, aka Ana Marie Cox, said she hopes the experience "teaches people not to trust media in general."3gp converter serrial number

The concepts of reliability and accuracy have tested many bloggers. Wonkette has even joked about actually making a phone call to check a fact. Too bad a few bloggers, perhaps driven by ego and the desire to be noticed and linked by other Web loggers, didn't do the same. Making these errors gives "old, big media" just another club to try to swat this vibrant, new new medium.

And just whom are they supposed to call? The errors in the exit polls weren't the bloggers'. They were the pollsters'. The bloggers merely reported what they said -- and gave the public credit for knowing how wrong pollsters always are. (By this rule, every time Matt Lauer swings to Al Roker, he ought to say, "Now here's Al, who's full of crap.")3gp converter serrial number

: Glenn Reynolds said the big-media spin is that bloggers are to blame for leaking the data. 3gp converter serrial number

I say bloggers should get credit for being open. Barnako replies:

"Bloggers were telling the public what they knew. Big media was not," writes Jeff Jarvis in a posting at Buzzmachine.com. Taking an "information wants to be free" posture, Jarvis said if he still held the ethics of "old, big media," he wouldn't feel this way. But old, big media's maturity prevented it from making a gaffe. They did not tell the public what they knew. They knew the polls were wrong.
Ha! They didn't know the polls were wrong until the actual votes -- and the GOP -- told them. Here's the moment when that happened: The Bush campaign told the networks -- and then the bloggers -- that the actual votes were coming in higher than the exit polls. And that wasn't just spin. It was true. 3gp converter serrial number

Whose values?

: What scares me most about the aftermath to Tuesday's election is how people will use the alleged American concern about "moral values" as an issue. 3gp converter serrial number

See NBC's exit poll as I summarized it: "The top issue (21%) was "moral values"; 78% of those who cared about that went for Bush, 19% for Kerry."3gp converter serrial number

Get past the necessary caveats: 3gp converter serrial number

First, the exit polls are proven now to be utterly, laughably discredited. 3gp converter serrial number

Second, know that in polls such as this, who the hell is not going to say that "moral values" are important? If you say that taxes are more important than "moral values" then you'll fear that Jesus is going to come into the polling place smashing the tables of the vote counters. 3gp converter serrial number

Third, if they'd asked what "moral values" means, they would have found a nation divided; it's a vague as air. 3gp converter serrial number

But that's just the problem: Many will ascribe to the words "moral values" a mandate to impose their values on the rest of us -- whether that's abortion, stem-cell research, homosexuality, birth control, free speech, Vietnam, education... you name it. 3gp converter serrial number

But as my sister, the Rev. Jarvis, said in an op-ed she sent to the NY Times (they should be smart enough to run it) and read to me last night over the phone, the rest of us have values, too. We go to church, too. As she eloquentlyl concluded in her piece, "Hard as that change is to imagine today, maybe four years from now, when the number one issue cited by voters in exit polls is again 'moral values,' those values will have something to do with economic justice, racial equality and the peaceable kingdom for which we all were made." 3gp converter serrial number

We all have moral values. They're just different. That's the issue. That's why we fight over these things. It's not as if one side has moral values and the other side doesn't and that's why we fight. We fight because we all have conviction about what is morally right and different definitions of what that means. 3gp converter serrial number

The further problem with this exit-poll question is that the attack squads who went after John Kerry will take it as their Second Amendment for mudslinging: They'll say that they won the election -- and they perhaps did -- by attacking the character and "moral values" of Kerry because he publicly opposed the Vietnam War and that the voters counted that as a top issue. And so watch them now loading up their mud pies for a Hillary run. And watch Michael Moore in his own pen making mud pies to aim at the other side. They'll all be slinging mud under the banner of "moral values."3gp converter serrial number

And one more issue, as Glenn Reynolds points out, is that big media and the left will latch onto this faux statistic to argue that all the people who voted for Bush are actually religious reactionaries, which is unfair to them and ultimately condescending to the electorate and brushes off all the other real issues that voters considered. It's also a tactical mistake, for it only makes it seem as if the religious reactionary fringe is much bigger than it actually it; this complaint only thus gives them more clout in media and politics. 3gp converter serrial number

But forget all that. 3gp converter serrial number

The real problem with all of this is that it perverts the very essence of the Constitution and its intent regarding government.3gp converter serrial number

Our government exists to perform a set of fairly well-prescribed tasks amounting to running the business of government: military defense, making and interpreting laws, maintaining the currency, foreign affairs, you know the list (and you can argue about whether it has been expanded too much or not enough another day in another post). We call the president the "executive" because we expect him (or her) to run the business of the United States. 3gp converter serrial number

But our government should not operate in loco priestus. [Sorry for the mangled Latin version of in loco parentus; can anybody with a decent classical education give me the right phrase?]3gp converter serrial number

Our government is not meant to be a church. That is the real intent of separating church and state. It's not just about keeping state away from interfering with church. It's about state not becoming church. 3gp converter serrial number

The Constitution is about not letting the state interfere unduly and uninvited in our lives -- in our bedrooms, our speech, our thoughts, our families, our beliefs. 3gp converter serrial number

That is a matter of both principle and also common sense. Even back then, the founding fathers certainly knew that power corrupts and that politicians should not be the people we turn to for moral guidance! They're politicians. They are on the front line of human corruption -- the wrong side of the line. 3gp converter serrial number

And the truth is that most of us would agree about most of what I just said. We don't want government in our homes. We don't want government restricting our rights. We don't want government legislating morality. 3gp converter serrial number

Yes, some extreme religionists would have government interfere but I believe they are a minority. But they are a powerful minority because as Virginia Postrel points out in today's Times, it's possible to mobilize such voters to come to the polls as a matter of moral duty. The religious right organized well, contributed heavily, spoke loudly, and came out to vote. They unquestionably helped make sure that George Bush got elected.3gp converter serrial number

But not everybody who voted for George Bush is therefore a Bible-thumping member of the religious right. Many of them cared first instead about jobs or the economy or small government or terrorism or the war or.....3gp converter serrial number

I know many who voted for George Bush who say that they are "fiscally conservative and socially liberal." They wouldn't agree with the religous reactionaries. 3gp converter serrial number

I know many who voted for George Bush who are conservative on some issues but not on others. 3gp converter serrial number

I know many libertarians who would agree that we don't want government interfering in our lives. 3gp converter serrial number

And I certainly know many liberals who would agree that we don't want government interfering in our lives or setting the nation's moral agenda. 3gp converter serrial number

And most Americans I know are, in fact, open and tolerant people who want to live and let live and not interfere in or judge their neighbors' lives. We're already moral, thank you very much, and we don't need politicians and their pals telling us what moral means. 3gp converter serrial number

It's time that we stand still and look around and realize that on "moral values" we all have much more in common than media and politicians of certain stripes would paint us to have and we're not ready for any moral jihads or inquisitions or dark ages. We are the great middle of America. 3gp converter serrial number

Ding-dong, the witch is dead

: No, I don't mean Arafat. There were reports that he'd died just now on Israeli TV but the French hospital denies it. 3gp converter serrial number

No, I mean that Fox reports that John Ashcroft is going to resign. Oh, please!3gp converter serrial number

CNN also says Colin Powell is going to quit. 3gp converter serrial number

Both those political reports from Command-Post. 3gp converter serrial number

: Somebody in the comments complains that I can't complain about Ashcroft because that violates my pledge. Ridiculous. I reply:

That doesn't mean I can't (a) retain a sense of humor and (b) retain an opinion. I have consistently disliked the choice of Ashcroft and his job in office and you know what I'm doing here: I'm celebrating the wisdom of George Bush for apparently getting rid of him! I'll take that as a hand of peace offered from Bush. Good for you, George! 3gp converter serrial number

Oh, or perhaps I misunderstand: Were you defending Arafat?

: Another comment -- as well as talk on FoxNews right now -- raises a nomination I made back in 2001: Rudy Guiliani for AG! That's who I wanted from the first. But as someone said in radio yesterday, if Guliani plans to run for President or another office, why should he take a cabinet post where something can get him into hot political and media water. Still, I hope he gets the job. That or head of Homeland Security. 3gp converter serrial number

Tears for a terrorist

: I dread Yasir Arafat's imminent funeral. I hate to think of the list of political and even religious leaders who will come out to praise a terrorist. But on the bright side, he will be out of power and perhaps, finally, we can deal with someone sane and civilized to finally find peace for and from Palestinians. 3gp converter serrial number

Pledge

: The Dallas Morning News and the Springfield, Mo. News Leader included the Pledge in editorials. Pretty cool. And thanks to all the many who linked to it. Also cool. On the other hand, Matt Welch and Brian Linse represent those who aren't yet willing to shake hands. 3gp converter serrial number

November 03, 2004

Exit the exit polls

: I talked to a few reporters this afternoon who were asking about blogs and exit polls and all that. 3gp converter serrial number

I told them that there was nothing wrong with bloggers revealing exit polls. Oh, I was raised on the ethics of old, big media and I used to believe that was wrong ... because everybody did. But blogging and this culture of transparency changed me. Now I believe there's no reason to keep information from people. 3gp converter serrial number

Last night, blogs (other than this one) got bombarded with traffic (shutting down this host) for a simple reason: Bloggers were telling the public what they knew. Big media was not. 3gp converter serrial number

How absurd is that? When did journalists get into the business of not telling their public what they know?3gp converter serrial number

To say that we should not share this information is essentially insulting and condescending to that public -- as if they can't handle it, as if knowing how Floridians allegedly voted would affect how an Oregonian will act. If you think you have to protect voters from information because they're too fragile or stupid, then you don't believe in democracy or the need for journalism. So tell the people what you know and let them decide what it means. 3gp converter serrial number

Besides... now that exit polls are utterly, laughably discredited, it won't matter one bit when they're revealed the next time. They are less informative than Vegas odds.3gp converter serrial number

A letter to our President

: Dear President Bush,3gp converter serrial number

Now it's about your legacy, not about the next election. Now is your chance to make history. 3gp converter serrial number

You can govern the entire nation and not play to your right fringe anymore. Oh, you can still have (prayer) breakfasts together, but you don't have to kiss up to them for votes now. You can surprise everyone and become a President of the center with a vision of your own, not someone else's: a Reagan or a Clinton.3gp converter serrial number

You can bring stability and democracy to Iraq and set an example for the Middle East. I do (still) believe that is an honorable and necessary goal. 3gp converter serrial number

You need to do some hard work to build relationships -- not with France, not with yesterday's world, but with tomorrow's. 3gp converter serrial number

You can make tough decisions about truly managing government and not cutting taxes while letting it grow. 3gp converter serrial number

You can bring together coalitions to find new solutions to health care, insurance, energy dependence, even the environment. 3gp converter serrial number

You can try. 3gp converter serrial number

Just one thing: Don't even think about appoint John Ashcroft to the Supreme Court. 3gp converter serrial number

Thank you.3gp converter serrial number

A letter to my fellow Democrats

: Dear fellow losers,3gp converter serrial number

He's our President, too. 3gp converter serrial number

Come on, say it: He's our President, too. 3gp converter serrial number

If you continue to treat him like the devil in a gray suit, you will only drive him to his fringe and drive his supporters toward their fringe and you will lose any hope of winning in four years. You will continue to divide America and give the other side license to do the same. So retract fangs and claws and empty the venom. 3gp converter serrial number

Treat him like your President and he might just act like it. Put country above party and we might even get somewhere. I don't mean that you should suddenly start agreeing with him -- 'stem cells bad!' -- but that in this political process we hold so dear, you can push for what matters to you: You can get your congressmen, as many as we have, to drive the tax cuts down a little lower and improve the environment a little more and maybe even do something to fix health insurance. Compromise. Negotiate. Wheedle. Flies. Honey. You know the story. 3gp converter serrial number

Push him. Push him hard. That will accomplish more than angry attacks. 3gp converter serrial number

The alternative is to sit in a room and growl like the village nut. That won't get us anywhere. And, in fact, it will damage the party and the worldview; it will push us toward our fringe so we get an even more unelectable candidate next time; it will let the Republicans grow. It's a bad strategy. 3gp converter serrial number

So suck it up and repeat after me: He's our President, too. 3gp converter serrial number

There, that didn't hurt too much, did it?3gp converter serrial number

Not a nation divided -- a nation dissatisfied

: The NY Times ran red-v-blue electoral college maps from 1940 today and what screams out from that is that we are not a nation divided, we are a nation dissatisfied with our choice. Given a candidate to be enthusiastic about, most of the states go one way or another. The exception since 1964: Carter v. Ford. We liked Reagan, as a nation. We liked Clinton, as a nation. We didn't like this choice, these last two elections. Give us somebody to get behind and watch the red-vs-blue civil war -- and all the media blather about it -- melt away. 3gp converter serrial number

Oh, Dan, you're still hurt

: Rather Biased has a hilarious quote from Dan Rather trying to argue that blogs are an extension of Karl Rove's brain. And you are an extension of whose brain, Dan?

"The secretary of state in Ohio says, we're not going to have another Florida, we will count all of those votes no matter how long it takes. It might take as much as a week. We'll simply have to wait and see. Ed Bradley, you did before saying clearly advantage Bush in Ohio, very hard to put the figures together and see how John Kerry can win. 3gp converter serrial number

"That being the case, one would expect that the blogging machine, which the White House and Bush-Kerry [sic] campaign have used to such strong advantage for any number of purposes over their four years will start, if it hasn't started already, a campaign to say Kerry and Edwards for the good of the country need to concede." 3gp converter serrial number

Dan Rather knows a thing or too about the collective power of blogs and the Internet but to make such a statement is preposterous. Looks like he's still stuck in 1974. 3gp converter serrial number

Bradley all but agreed with Dan: 3gp converter serrial number

"I'm sure it started already." 3gp converter serrial number

Rather agrees with Bradley's assent: "Right."

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Pathetic blog basher's cry for attention

: Frank Barnako is trying to turn himself into John Dvorak or Andrew Orlowski: Desperate for attention and traffic, he decides to bash bloggers with the sure knowledge -- this being the proof -- that they will will link to the idiocy. So here's your link, Frank. But you're full of crap. If you think blogs are so damned worthless, why did you just start one? The worst of it is that it is a nonsequetorial headache:

Blogs were quick to publish real or made-up exit polls at midafternoon, showing Kerry strength. That killed a 60-point rally in the Dow Jones Industrial Average.3gp converter serrial number

At least some traders read blogs, then, and act on what they read. Not so, it would appear, young voters. Advertisers including Nike (NKE: news, chart, profile) and Audi think Weblogs are the medium to reach young consumers. So where was the youth and minority vote? Not reading political blogs, it appears. MSNBC says the percentage of young voters who cast ballots was the same as it was four years ago.

Huh? Whoever said that blogs were going to bring out the youth vote. Whoever said that blogs were young (see picture: right)? Makes no friggin sense. But you got your link, Frank. 3gp converter serrial number

Without boos

: I like having the speeches the next day and not at the boozy victory/defeat parties on election night: No embarrassing boos. No danger of a Dean Scream. The Kerry event did look rather like a funeral with limo drivers pacing outside the door and old Uncle Ted hugging in condolence. Still, I like seeing this in daylight. Much classier. 3gp converter serrial number

The concession

: Good for you, Kerry, for conceding. Thank you.3gp converter serrial number

Dear Sen. Kerry,

: Please concede today. 3gp converter serrial number

Don't put the country through the torture of a long, drawn-out, and most likely futile process. Don't put the party through the torture and the humiliation. Follow Al Gore's example and be a mensch.3gp converter serrial number

You lost the popular vote and lost the election. Many will dissect what you did wrong but we'll put that off. The best thing to do now so you don't look like an utter loser is to be the gentleman and the patriot first and help America move on. 3gp converter serrial number

I voted for you. But that was Nov. 2. Now it's Nov. 3
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Not quite the morning after

: No change from last night...3gp converter serrial number

: Brian Williams is saying that "security moms" were an important factor: Single women voted for Kerry but married women with children voted for Bush. 3gp converter serrial number

: "Moral values" will be a blank slate upon which every would-be pope and pundit will draw their own view of the world: abortion, sex, Vietnam.... 3gp converter serrial number

: Howard Stern practically took the pledge this morning. He said that Bush is President and he'll support him as President. He also said he's damned glad he's already going to satellite. 3gp converter serrial number

: I will be away from the keyboard for much of this morning; back later....3gp converter serrial number

No cigar

: I was going to write a final post for the night congratulating the victors. But considering all the hemming and hawing on the networks, it's still a bit too soon to do that. I'll bet I'll be posting it in the morning. But right now, I'm going to call it a night (or part thereof). 3gp converter serrial number

Too close for comfort

: At almost 2a, CNN just declared Ohio too close to call. Yes, you read that right. Too close to call. 3gp converter serrial number

: CNN also says they hear that the Kerry campaign is ready to ship lawyers to both Ohio and Iowa for challenges. 3gp converter serrial number

: Pat Buchanan on MSBNC says if he were Kerry, he would not concede tonight. 3gp converter serrial number

Please don't drag it out

: Ohio's secretary of state was saying they won't count the provisional ballots for 11 days. Let's hope that he and Kerry don't drag this out. We need to move on and quickly.3gp converter serrial number

What won it

: The NBC exit poll includes some fascinating and surprising data. Among the issues that mattered most to voters, the top issue was not terrorism or Iraq.3gp converter serrial number

The top issue (21%) was "moral values"; 78% of those who cared about that went for Bush, 19% for Kerry. That's a huge difference. Read this one as you will (MSNBC commentators see it as code for Vietnam and the Swifties). 3gp converter serrial number

Next: economy/jobs at 20%; 81% preferring Kerry, 17% Bush. So Kerry got much better marks on the economy.3gp converter serrial number

Terror comes in third at 18%; 85% preferring Bush, 15% Kerry. That's the one that amazes me -- not in the Kerry/Bush split but in the importance voters gave it. Bush ran on terrorism; it wasn't No. 1 in the minds of voters; yet he still won. 3gp converter serrial number

Iraq comes in next at 15%; 75% preferring Kerry, 24% Bush. No surprise.3gp converter serrial number

Health next at 8%; 79% preferring Kerry, 21% Bush.3gp converter serrial number

Taxes next at only 5%; evenly split at 52% preferring Bush, 47% preferring Kerry. 3gp converter serrial number

Finally, education at 4%; 76% preferring Kerry, 23% preferring Bush. So much for the education president as a defining issue. 3gp converter serrial number

Also...3gp converter serrial number

53% say we're safer from terrorism now; 43% said not. That appears to be why terrorism came in No. 3 above; it's hardly a nonissue, but it's an issue declining in the priority list. 3gp converter serrial number

Iraq is similarly split: 53% say it's going very/somewhat badly and 42% very/somewhat well. Not a landslide. 3gp converter serrial number

52% say Iraq is part of the war on terrorism; 45% say not. 3gp converter serrial number

One voter gone[Your headline here]

: As if in tribute, [Your lede here] Texas executes a man tonight. 3gp converter serrial number

: See the comments. 3gp converter serrial number

Bush Wins

: What the hell, might as well call it....3gp converter serrial number

: I see that Drudge just called it. 3gp converter serrial number

'Teresa, what's the number for the White House?'

: Well, it's 1a and it's about time for the concessions call and speech. 3gp converter serrial number

One vote left

: At 1a, NBC says Bush is one electoral vote short. 3gp converter serrial number

: Russert says that even if Kerry took every outstanding state except Nevada and New Hampshire, it would get Kerry to a 269 tie and the House calls it.
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Check Craig's List for Teresa Heinz Kerry's resume

: See a funny comment from Craig Newmark here.3gp converter serrial number

Fox calls Ohio for Bush

: Well, nevermind what I just said about Ohio keeping us up tonight. It's all but over. 3gp converter serrial number

: The commentators on Fox only 10 minutes later keep saying "if" Ohio holds. They may have called this one too early. 3gp converter serrial number

: But now cautious NBC calls Ohio. "It now becomes all but impossible for John Kerry to pull this off," says Tom Brokaw.3gp converter serrial number

Our new national whipping boy

: We've spent the last four years making fun of Florida for its arithemetic inanity and its sad-sack weather. 3gp converter serrial number

Now it could be Ohio if they keep us up. 3gp converter serrial number

Didn't Ohio cause the blackout, too?3gp converter serrial number

Ralph who?

: Ralph Nader won't make any difference tonight. Heh. 3gp converter serrial number

Red and blue now in permanent ink

: It's looking as if a red state is a red state and a blue state is a blue state and nothing will change it.... unless, as I said earlier, one of the parties starts engaging in human gerrymandering, moving loyalists from one state to another. Maybe Michael Moore and George Soros can start the political Levittowns for the future. 3gp converter serrial number

Out of the mouths of....

: On his way to bed, Doc Searls' kid asks, "What's an electrical vote?" Same kid referred to my place of employment as "The Candyass Building." Like that kid. 3gp converter serrial number

Bipolar

: An email exchange:

From: Wonkette
Sent: Tue Nov 02 11:40:08 2004
To: Kerryperson
Subject: how are you?3gp converter serrial number

From: Kerryperson
Subject: RE: how are you?
Date: November 2, 2004 11:41:08 PM EST
To: Wonkette3gp converter serrial number

Sober

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What, no chads?

: A day in the life of a blogging poll worker in Florida. 3gp converter serrial number

Ooooooooohio

: It's quite clear: Bush wins unless Kerry can grab Ohio. 3gp converter serrial number

November 02, 2004

Rove tears up resume

: CBS calls Florida for Bush. Looking like four more, eh? 3gp converter serrial number

: NBC wins the castration award. Hasn't called Florida yet. 3gp converter serrial number

: Frank Catalano at LostRemote says ABC was first, then CBS, now the AP. NBC and CNN holding back. 3gp converter serrial number

: CNN just called Florida.3gp converter serrial number

: NBC just called Colorado for Bush. Still no Florida call. 3gp converter serrial number

: And NBC just called Florida.3gp converter serrial number

That's what I call foreplay. 3gp converter serrial number

Exit stage right

: On CNN, Jeff Greenfield and Marc Racicot, the head of the Bush campaign, are complaining about the exit polls being far off, acknowledging that they weren't quoted on the air but that they were "flying across the internet" and affected at least campaign staffs and media. 3gp converter serrial number

Exit polls are going to be as trusted as lawyers, journalists, and used-car salesmen in future elections. 3gp converter serrial number

: Glenn Reynolds links to this Randy Holloway post saying the story of tonight is how the polls f'ed up. 3gp converter serrial number

Free Wonkette!

: Ana Marie Cox is being held prisoner. 3gp converter serrial number

Throw away the Keyes

: It's so nice seeing imported nutjob Alan Keyes going down in flames. The Republicans would have been better off running Homer Simpson.3gp converter serrial number

Will this be on the final

: Oregonlive.com (a day-job site) has a professor calling the election for Bush. 3gp converter serrial number

Aaron Brown buzz

: I'm told that Aaron Brown just read my Pledge on CNN. 3gp converter serrial number

It made Joe Territo do a spit-take with his Sam Adams. 3gp converter serrial number

Jim Treacher says in a comment below: "Aaron Brown just read your pledge on the air. It probably took him longer to say it than it did for you to type it."3gp converter serrial number

Many nice folks are sending me email to let me know. Thanks. 3gp converter serrial number

I'm delighted. Spread the pledge. Who better to do it than Aaron Brown?3gp converter serrial number

: UPDATE: The amazing Staci Kramer, now of PaidContent.org, backs up her buffer and transcribes what Aaron said:

We've long lamented the coming of the day when nobody, nobody, will listen to or entertain an idea different from their own. We're more than halfway there already, it seems. Part of the passion animating this campaign derived from taking the country back,­ back from them. Or, by the same token, keeping it out of their hands whoever they and them might be. 3gp converter serrial number

A viewer of ours and a frequent e-mailer wrote tonight that if the Democrats won it would only be because of massive voter fraud. It just never occurred to her that in the field of ideas they might just have won. 3gp converter serrial number

With that in mind the blogger Jeff Jarvis posted this pledge on his web site:

After the results are in, it goes, I promise to support the president even if I didn’t vote for him, criticize the president even if I did vote for him, uphold civil standards of discourse in blogs and in the media while pushing both to be better, unite as a nation even as we work together as a party to make America better.
Given how little we agree on as a country these days maybe it's too much to ask but ask yourself this tonight: isn't anything better than what we call political discourse these days?
: Matt Welch prefers the Steve Martin pledge.3gp converter serrial number

What he says.

: "This prudence is driving me crazy." -- Mort Kondracke on FoxNews3gp converter serrial number

Spinning wheel

: Blogs are big enough to get spun on election night. See Instapundit and Wonkette reporting Republican confidence in Florida, the same message that went to NBC. 3gp converter serrial number

The alternative to the alternative to the alternative

: It's a big night not just for Drudge but for the new, bird-dogging DrudgeBlog. 3gp converter serrial number

Vote our way, Yankee dog

: I'm seeing a Kyocera copier commercial with its logo animated against an outline of the U.S. -- an outline all in red. Subliminal Asian political message. 3gp converter serrial number

Back in the saddle couch

: At Buzz HQ. Ready for a long night. Cabernet in hand. Feet up. Remote in hand. It's like watching a tennis match in which no one breaks serve. Or beach volleyball. Naw... I don't want to see these guys in Speedos. 3gp converter serrial number

On the road again

: Heading back to HQ in NJ. See you online in a bit....3gp converter serrial number

Political real estate scams

: Brian Williams just said that if Kerry pulls off Florida, it will be thanks to new voters. They make up 13 percent of those who voted and they lean to Kerry 59 to 40 percent. 3gp converter serrial number

The strategy for winning in 2008: Political condos and kibbutzes in the Sunshine State. Birkenstock Estates. The Vegan Arms. PETA Plaza. No More War Woods. 3gp converter serrial number

On the air

: TV Newser is getting carpal tunnel syndrome, he's typing and clicking the remote so much. 3gp converter serrial number

Pong ping

: NBC calls Virginia for Bush. 3gp converter serrial number

: Lisa Meyers gives us the live GOP spin: The real votes are coming in higher than the exit polls, they say. Republicans are reality-based, after all. 3gp converter serrial number

Ping pong

: ABC is calling North Carolina for Bush, which isn't surprising (but that it took this long is surprising). 3gp converter serrial number

Free marketing tip

: A smart marketer would buy all the Drudgereport ad inventory and take away his f'ing popunders. 3gp converter serrial number

The F word wins

: Comedy Central said it best:

GO F*CK YOUR SELF
Pat Leahy, Dick Cheney’s sparring partner just won reelection in Vermont.
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Oh that pesky war

: The AP exit polls say the war won Jersey for Kerry. And I thought it was Bruuuuuce.

Opposition to the Iraq war, and dismay over its course, helped John Kerry capture New Jersey's 15 electoral votes, according to an Associated Press exit poll.3gp converter serrial number


About half of those casting ballots in the state and nation Tuesday said they opposed the war, and the Massachusetts senator got nine in 10 of their votes in New Jersey, the poll found. A solid majority of New Jersey voters also thought that the Iraq war is going badly, and about four in five of them voted for Kerry.3gp converter serrial number

However, terrorism was also an important issue in New Jersey, which lost nearly 700 residents in the Sept. 11 attacks. It was cited as the top issue for about one-fourth of state voters, and more than four in five of them chose President Bush.3gp converter serrial number

At the same time, many Kerry supporters were lukewarm about the candidate: about 40 percent said their vote for president was mainly against his opponent, a feeling shared by just one in eight Bush voters.

And who says we're atypical in New Jersey? Those sentiments will likely be reflected across the country. 3gp converter serrial number

The people speak

: Check out MSNBC's citizen journalist reports here. 3gp converter serrial number

Where have all the flowers gone?

: Kelly O'Donnell, the second-hottest redhead on NBC tonight, tells us that Kerry was relaxing more and playing his guitar. But what was he playing? THe people want to know. 3gp converter serrial number

The Electoral College football team

: At Location One, there are some nice folks from other countries and they've been asking me what the hell this Electoral College thing is. I'm making it sound like it makes sense, doing my diplomatic best. And I'm telling them it will never go away. It used to be about slavery and confederation and state's right. But now, of course, it's all about campaign spending. It makes TV so much cheaper... for now. But once TV is no longer regional but directly addressable by anyone anywhere on the internet, that will change: Candidates will need to advertise to all the people again. 3gp converter serrial number

No swingers, us

: Jersey goes Kerry. You're welcome. 3gp converter serrial number

: Connecticut, Illinois, Mass, Maryland, Maine, DC, Deleware to Kerry.
: Tennessee, Alabama, Oklahoma to Bush. 3gp converter serrial number

Young Ohio speaks

: NBC shows its Ohio exit poll revealing that all age groups under 60 are going for Kerry. That's making it look like Kerry, my rudimentary math would tell me. 3gp converter serrial number

Check Craig's List for Rove's resume

: Brokaw and Russert are saying that Virginia and North Carolina are too close to call. And those are surprising because they're Republican (save for the Edwards homeboy factor). Wonkette says it's all the odder because Kerry pulled out of Va. last month on the presumption of loss. 3gp converter serrial number

Crown the new queen of leaks: Wonkette!

: Wonkette is beating the panties off of Drudge with leaks and predictions and prognostications. 3gp converter serrial number

: DRUDGE CONCEDES DEFEAT. PUTS UP WIMPY RED HEADLINE: "ENOUGH OF THE MEDIA EXITS; LETS COUNT THE PEOPLE'S VOTES!" Yeah, sure, Matt. 3gp converter serrial number

Bloggers on TV

: MSNBC is showing Joe Trippi and not Wonkette. Bad TV choice. 3gp converter serrial number

: Chris Matthews and the MSNBC folks keep talking about blogs as if they are synonymous with "young people." We're flattered but that's wrong. It's just people. 3gp converter serrial number

Whereabouts

: I'm going to the city now to go here. Call it Democracy Plaza Downtown. 3gp converter serrial number

The Pledge

: Lots of good people are taking the Pledge and also remixing -- see Megan at Insta's place. 3gp converter serrial number

Exit poll PC

: I know there'll be a lot of gnashing of incisors tomorrow about blogs leaking leaked exit polls. 3gp converter serrial number

To hell with the gnashing. We're all big boys and girls. We can decide whether to (a) believe it and (b) vote on our own.3gp converter serrial number

Let information be free. Let us know what big media and big politics know. 3gp converter serrial number

Transparency, man, transparency. 3gp converter serrial number

Online hell....

: Been down for two hours... 3gp converter serrial number

: Wonkette's exit polls looking damned good for Kerry....3gp converter serrial number

: Blogs moved the market....

U.S. stocks reversed course suddenly on Tuesday and drifted lower as chatter on the Internet speculated that early exit polls had Sen. John Kerry leading the presidential election in key swing states....3gp converter serrial number

"That's what we're hearing," said Lisa Hansen, head trader at Transamerica Investment Management. "Apparently the blogs are saying that Kerry is ahead in one or two of the swing states and that's why the market dipped." 3gp converter serrial number

Keith Keenan, vice president of institutional trading at brokerage Wall Street Access, said he'd heard vague rumors that early exit polls out of Ohio and Florida favored Kerry. 3gp converter serrial number

"That's some of the chatter I've heard," Keenan said.

: Will post as often as the internet allows me.....3gp converter serrial number

: The good host who handles many, many of us bloggers said they maxed out on their bandwidth. I don't know whether it was DOS. But there was a lot of traffic. Wonkette slowed to a crawl as well, on another host. 3gp converter serrial number

Blogs are big, all right. Too friggin' big. 3gp converter serrial number

: Hinderaker is trying to calm the nervous GOP souls. 3gp converter serrial number

Attacked

: 601am confirms that the host for many blogs -- including Instapundit and this one -- have been under dos attack. They seem to be putting out the fire. 3gp converter serrial number

: UPDATE: The wonderful Stacy from Hosting Matters says in the comments this is NOT a DOS attack. They are running at 100 percent on their pipe.
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The non-est nonstory there is

: Election day before the polls close is the biggest nonstory there is. There is nothing to say and the cable networks are proving it live.3gp converter serrial number

The best thing about today...

: ... is that we will have no more TV interviews with slow-talking, dull-eyed undecided voters. 3gp converter serrial number

Celebrity sells

: Amazon is looking for someone to create more lines of products using celebrity names. Knock off another middleman: Instead of endorsing products, own them. Do the George Foreman thing. Joan Rivers. Paris Hilton. [via the PaidContent jobs blog, which reveals all kinds of fascinating info on what companies are up to]3gp converter serrial number