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May 10, 2005

Who's the teacher?

: Amy Gahran lists what journalists can learn from bloggers and bloggers from journalists and both together. A very good list.

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You're fired up

: The Guardian finds the solution to circulation woes: It hires a fired Apprentice wannabe to sell the paper.

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Democracy spreads

: Cha'nad Bahraini reports on democracy demonstrations in Bahrain. I went to GoogleNews to see whether I could find reports of it from big sources. I didn't find any. But I did find plans to open a Disleyland-style theme park there. Take a look at the blog; lots of great pictures (which take a while to load). [via the amazing Global Voice]

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Ich bin ein Georgian

: Publius Pundit covers Bush's speech in Georgia:

“You gathered here armed with nothing but roses and the power of your convictions and you claimed your liberty and because you acted, Georgia is today both sovereignty and free and a beacon of liberty for this region and the world.”

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The fame parade

: Arianna certainly knows the famous and they keep coming. Today has posts from former blogger Bill Maher, former blogger Gary Hart, Larry David (supporting Bolton), Tina Brown (nicely done on her fade out from TV), Rob Reiner, Jerry Brown, Joe Scarborough, Larry Gelbart, Rob Reiner, Hiam Saban, Jon Corzine, Walter Cronkite.... Now if she can just get Letterman to blog....

: And in a smart business movie, Arianna is syndicating the fame blog via Tribune.

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The man-blows-up-man story

: John Tierney has a super column in The Times today with long-needed journalistic self-examination of our coverage of "suicide bombers," as we've dubbed these insane murders. Tierney says he doesn't read these stories anymore, except the ones he had to report and write:

When the other reporters and I finished filling our notebooks, we wondered morosely if we could have done a service to everyone - victims, mourners, readers - by reducing the story to a box score. We all knew the template: number of victims, size of the crater, distance debris had been hurled, height of smoke plume, range at which explosion was heard.

There was no larger lesson except that some insurgents were willing and able to kill civilians, which was not news. We were dutifully presenting as accurate an image as we could of one atrocity, but we knew we were contributing to a distorted picture of life for Iraqis....

Correspondents complained that they'd essentially become cop reporters, and that the suicide bombings took so much of their time that they couldn't report on the rest of the country. They were more interested in other stories, but as long as the rest of the press corps kept covering the bombing du jour, that was where their editors and producers expected them to be, too....

I'm not advocating official censorship, but there's no reason the news media can't reconsider their own fondness for covering suicide bombings. A little restraint would give the public a more realistic view of the world's dangers...

Terrorists know the numbers are against them and realize that daily bombings will not win the war. All along, their hope has been to inspire recruits and spread general fear with another tactic, the bombing as photo opportunity. For some reason, their media strategy still works.

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More power

: I've been holding off upgrading to the Treo 650 to see whether I can get a high-speed EVDO version from Verizon, which has said nothing. But now Earthlink, which resells Verizon access, says its 650 will use EVDO, according to Treonauts. Blogging from anywhere, baby.

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And a good thing it is

: Andrew Sullivan confesses.

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Big Mac tax

: Detroit is talking about taxing fast food.

What a nitwit idea.

First, what's fast? My Chinese restaurant is really fast but it doesn't sell burgers.

Second, poor people eat fast food. Let's tax them more. Poor people serve fast food. Let's eliminate a few of their jobs.

Third, this is a rather obnoxious means of trying to legislate lifestyle. I'm OK with taxing tobacco because the cost to society of its effects is substantial. Booze? Well, what the hell, that precedent is set. Gasoline? Yes, we need to find some way to reduce demand (though this isn't the way... but that's another argument).

But taxing my Taco Bell chicken grilled stufft burrito? Butt out, bozo.

This is taxation as punishment for something somebody doesn't approve of: Tax the smokers, the drinkers, the gas-guzzlers, the rich, the burger-snarfers.

What's next? Taxing violent games? Sexy movies? Condoms?

If we're really going to improve the quality of life via fiscal policy, I say let's tax checkered flannel shirts, polyester suits, car alarms that make 20 obnoxious sounds and never turn off, Dr. Phil, mullets, Britney Spears CDs, bare-midriff tops over size 6, Speedos in any size, magnetic ribbons on the backs of cars in any color, Starbucks orders of more than four words, pop-up ads, tofu, PowerPoint, and gum.

What else?

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Video help

: Trey Jackson is the videographer of blogs. He records and makes available all kinds of blogworthy bits from TV -- because the networks don't do it (and they should). Not surprisingly, his bandwidth bill is a killer. He needs help.

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And the don't even have a First Amendment

: British TV authorities -- and where there are TV authorities in any country is beyond me -- have decided that the airing of the Jerry Springer opera did not violate their rules ... despite its Deadwoodspeak.

Jerry Springer: the Opera provoked accusations of blasphemy and a firestorm of protest from religious campaigners when it was broadcast earlier this year. But the television watchdog Ofcom has ruled that the programme did not breach broadcasting guidelines.

Ofcom received more than 16,000 complaints - an unprecedented number - but yesterday ruled that although the January showing "clearly had the potential to offend and indeed the intention to shock, it was set in a very clear context as a comment on modern TV"....

Religious groups were particularly offended by the programme's portrayal of Christian figures, which included Jesus wearing a nappy.

Tabloid press reports stoked the controversy, saying that the programme contained 8,000 swear words. According to the BBC, however, it only contained "around 200 f-words" and "nine c-words".

In its ruling, Ofcom said it "appreciated that the representation of religious figures was offensive to some people".

But it said: "The show's effect was to satirise modern fame and the culture of celebrity....."

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Everything bad is....

: I was wandering down M Street in Georgetown after doing MSNBC and having dinner last night and so I went into the Barnes & Noble there and while looking at magazines, I heard some author upstairs talking; thought nothing of it until I heard the words "social software." How many people use the words "social software" in a sentence? The odds are good that I knew whoever it was, I figured. And sure enough: It was Steven Johnson beginning his book tour for Everything Bad is Good for You. I caught the last hunk of his performance and he was engaging and provocative and a few of the folks in the audienc -- book readers, obviously -- bristled a bit at the notion that TV and games can be good for us and make us smarter, as Steven argues. He did a good job defending his thesis and pop culture with it.

And by the way, I'm coming to wonder whether books are any better for us than TV or movies or the internet or any other form of media. It's not for medium that makes it intelligent but the thought inside. But that will be the subject of another post....

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